Fire in Snow
by suitcase design winner
Summary: When the High Mage Manfred von Karma takes out his revenge on the Royal House of Edgeworth, the king is left dead and the prince abducted. Phoenix Wright, a lowly guard, knows it's up to him to save the prince.
1. Chapter 1

The news came by bird at dawn: an uprising at the edge of the kingdom, led by a governor who'd allied with the barbarian tribes he'd pledged to quell.

"This is the sixth such uprising during your reign," pointed out Manfred von Karma. He was an intelligent and powerful man, impeccably ordered and eternally dissatisfied with the behavior of everyone around him. That extended to the palace guards, his own daughter, and even the royal family. The only person to escape Manfred's judgment was himself. "Clearly, leniency has bred disorder. The governor needs to be put down like the dog he is."

The king didn't immediately respond. Serious and just, King Gregory meted out no punishment unless it was deserved. His father had expanded their kingdom through war, then died just before he fatally overextended their reach. Gregory's deliberate kingship was the only thing that had held the realm together as its growing pains eased. "I've never before called for the death of the rebellious governors," King Gregory eventually said. The royal court was silent, from the lowest guard to the prince standing near the throne. "Without uniquely notable levels of destruction or disorder, I do not see how I can treat this uprising any differently. High Mage, I trust that you, as always, will capture this man and return him to custody. He will then be questioned and that intelligence will be used to stop further unrest."

Hesitation was von Karma's only answer.

Murmurs wound through the court. Even Phoenix Wright, a young guard who mostly knew von Karma by reputation, found himself leaning in closer with surprise. High Mage von Karma never hesitated, ever. He'd sent his daughter away when a spot opened for her to further her magical studies and hadn't even embraced her when she left. A slap on a horse's rump had set the carriage into motion, then he'd strode back into the palace to continue his work. This was Phoenix's first year in the guards and he'd found himself more afraid of the High Mage than any foreign army.

"From my tower, I will call down winter upon his palace," von Karma eventually said. "The skies will turn on them and the province's entire capital will be frozen for their crimes."

The prince took a step forward, frowning. "The king doesn't want you to destroy the entire town, von Karma," protested Prince Miles. He looked like a paler version of the king and matched his serious nature and fierce idealism. "And we don't want you to _destroy_ anyone at all, not even the governor. Just capture him like you've taken in the others."

The look von Karma gave the prince burned with such hatred that Phoenix found himself reaching for his sword. "What're you doing, Nick?" hissed his friend Larry, who'd also traveled to the royal city of Angelos in search of a life beyond donkey herding or barley farming. Normally Phoenix looked far more believable in their guard's ensemble, but it was Larry who kept his head that day. "You can't pull your sword on that guy!"

_Of course I can't,_ Phoenix thought and forced his hand away from the sword's grip. What was he _thinking?_ Just because von Karma sometimes scared the daylights out of him was no reason to start an uprising of his own right there in the royal court.

"I was speaking with the king," von Karma said after a long pause. His ashen gaze bored into the prince's, who met it fearlessly. Despite that courage, Phoenix felt uncomfortably sure that the prince was in grave danger from his own father's advisor. His hand twitched again toward his sword. He was a royal guard, and so it was his primary function in life to protect the king and prince. Even though he didn't know the extent of the man's magic, it was clear to him that von Karma _was_ dangerous right now. Larry didn't think the same, no, but Larry was an idiot.

"My son speaks for me as well," King Gregory said placidly, and gestured for him to continue.

Phoenix swallowed as he watched. For some curious reason, he'd prefer it if the king himself delivered this news that von Karma clearly hated.

"Five times, I've seen you lead our armies to a rebellious province and return with the leader in chains," said Prince Miles. "I see no reason why you cannot do so again."

Silver-worked boots clicked on the marble floors as von Karma stepped forward. "I am telling you what must be done, princeling. Every person in that town supported that traitor with their livelihoods. They deserve to share his fate. You want my advice, Your Grace? Kill them. Kill them all."

King Gregory spoke up before his son replied. His voice was so mild that Phoenix suspected he must be very angry indeed. "If that is your advice, Manfred, then no, I don't believe I want it. I am ordering you to travel with my soldiers down to Deele and retrieve the governor just as you retrieved the others. Any civilian deaths are unacceptable, and will be on your head. Am I understood?"

Manfred von Karma said nothing.

Prince Miles stepped forward, nearly toe-to-toe with von Karma, and Phoenix had to force his hand off the sword handle again. "Your king asked you a question, _Manfred."_

Hatred blazed through von Karma's eyes again, and a ripple of magic made them glow like the full moon in winter. He threw his shoulders back and tossed his fox-lined cloak dramatically behind him. "I cannot."

"You can't refuse your king!" Prince Miles protested, though King Gregory stayed silent as his brow furrowed.

"I did not say that I would not," von Karma snapped, his eyes turning the stormy blue-grey of the northern sea. "I said that I could not. It's the height of summer and Deele is on the southern border of your kingdom."

"I don't understand," King Gregory said slowly.

Arms rigid at his sides, von Karma raised his chin and said, "You know perfectly well that I am a northern mage, Your Grace. My powers are limited in the heat."

Still frowning, King Gregory replied, "That's all well and good, Manfred, but my soldiers will handle the capture. You need only direct them."

When von Karma didn't reply, a small smile crossed Prince Miles' lips. "High Mage, forgive me, but you're almost giving us the impression that you'll... melt."

"Miles," Gregory chuckled, "don't tease him." He hesitated, a curious smile blooming to match his son's, and asked, "Could it be true, Manfred? The look on your face when he said that..."

Silence answered, long and painful. Larry was the first person to laugh and it spread quickly. Quiet at first, it soon sounded like shrieking crows had filled the court. Face white with rage, von Karma's hand snapped forward and seized the prince's jacket. All laughter ceased, replaced by a sharp intake of breath that echoed in the royal chamber.

Very slowly, Phoenix lowered his sword from where he'd put it to the High Mage's throat. He didn't even remember lunging forward. The prince gave him a look of mingled thanks and surprise as he smoothed the wrinkles where von Karma had grabbed him. Phoenix had never seen him that close before; guards only came this close to their charges if something had gone very wrong. If Manfred's eyes were rotating fiercely through the colors of the far north, the prince's looked like a gentle rainstorm over Phoenix's old home.

The king gave Phoenix a similar look of thanks, then dismissed him with a nod. Phoenix returned to a gawking Larry's side as Prince Miles retook his place next to the throne. "You have denied my orders and laid a hand on my son," Gregory said coldly. "Your service is not required for addressing this rebellion, Manfred. Mage Fey?"

A woman, much younger than Manfred and voluptuous even under her heavy robes, stepped forward in surprise. "Yes, Your Grace?"

"You'll be overseeing the capture. I trust you have no problems with summer?"

The words had been asked in all seriousness; King Gregory wasn't known for his levity. Still, they sent the crowd into a fresh round of laughter that circled the room and grew each time it lapped. The High Mage stared at the royal duo with open hatred as his hands glowed blue and white and silver. "Enough!" Manfred shouted. "You dare laugh? You dare _laugh_ at me?" Snow exploded from the ceiling like a roaring blizzard, and ice spread under his feet until it hit the far walls. Prince Miles blocked his father with his cloak, moving on instinct, but Gregory pushed him aside and stood steady on the slick floor.

"Your service," Gregory repeated gravely, "is not required ever again, Manfred."

Manfred von Karma stared at him for a long beat, then swept out with another word and the crowd parted to let him pass. The only person he looked at was Phoenix. That glance only lasted a second, yet Phoenix felt more frozen than when the blizzard had erupted.

"What did you _do_, Nick?" Larry hissed as the guards retook their places along the walls and servants hurried to open any window that might let in some sunshine. "You were going to lop the scary guy's head off!"

"He threatened the prince," Phoenix said, feeling like he was stating the obvious. "That's the entire reason we're here, Larry: to stop something like that from happening." When he glanced at the royal dais, the sight of the prince looking back at Phoenix startled him. Prince Miles inclined his head in thanks and Phoenix, face warm, rubbed the back of his neck and nodded back.

"I dunno," Larry said and sighed. "He looked pretty mad at you."

"He doesn't look mad," Phoenix said, tilting his head. The prince was checking on an elderly servant woman who'd slipped on the ice. He had the fine, angular features of the kingdom's royalty, but there was something about both him and his father that made them seem simply _decent_ under those faces that belonged in oil paintings. "He looks... nice."

"Not him," Larry hissed. _"Him."_

Following Larry's gaze to the door, Phoenix shrugged. "The High Mage left, Larry. It'll be fine. I just hope Mage Fey gets that army down there soon, or von Karma might try to beat them and freeze the entire place anyway, just to prove a point." The captain had already sent several soldiers to raid von Karma's tower in the castle and seize any magical objects he might take for immediate revenge, but Phoenix didn't think that would stop him from making a point _somehow._

"You really think he'd do that?" Larry wondered.

Remembering the look on von Karma's face when he'd grabbed the prince, Phoenix frowned. "Yeah. I think he would. Come on; I see the captain pointing us to the hall. Let's get dinner and warm up."

Fey led her army out before evening fell and they were over the horizon when the sun vanished behind it. For three days, the memories of Manfred von Karma's rage faded in the palace and the focus returned to Deele's rebellion.

That third night was colder than the heart of winter.

"He's back!" Phoenix yelled, pulling on the heaviest cloak he could find as he grabbed his sword and burst into the screaming blizzard. He didn't know where his captain was, didn't know where Larry was, but he knew his duty: protect the prince. Protect the king. On unsteady legs, he scrambled across the icy courtyard and began pounding up spiral stairs toward the royal chambers. Frost spread even as he ran, and he barely caught himself as the stone turned into blocks of ice as thick as a winter river. Each step he took was soon done on pure willpower; the temperature was dropping by the second. His breath had puffed when he left the barracks, but by now he could feel the air freezing his throat and lungs.

King Gregory was in his chamber, still and silent on his bed. A brilliant icy spear erupted from his heart, its bottom inches coated in frozen blood.

Phoenix bit down on his glove to stifle his scream, then ran in search of the prince.

Prince Miles' chambers were empty. The window eighty feet above the ground was open, though no door was, and snowflakes streamed from it like a decaying bridge. As Phoenix's heartbeat pounded in his ears, he followed the path of those flakes as they wound away from the tower. Some floated toward the ground and some caught an updraft toward the stars, but every last one moved in the same direction on the compass.

As Phoenix stared north, the Guidestar twinkled in the cloudless sky. It was as the same unearthly blue as Manfred's eyes.


	2. Chapter 2

"Absolutely not," said the captain of the guards as he paced the length of the barracks. "We've no idea where von Karma has gone, and—"

"He's gone _north_," Phoenix insisted.

The captain stared at him for a long enough beat that Phoenix grew uncomfortable. "And where, exactly, would you suggest that we focus our forces in 'the north?'" the man asked after that stretch. "There are two major ranges and bitter ice beyond. No one knows where von Karma's base is, and I refuse to commit our troops on a wild goose chase when our best solution is to wait for Mage Fey's return. With her powers, we have a much better chance of setting off in the right direction."

"North!" Phoenix said. "Aren't you listening? I saw it: straight north! At least send scouts, Sir! We let the king die; our only job now is to rescue the—"

"Do you think I don't know what my job is?" the captain asked softly. He'd flinched at the mention of the king and pain filled his eyes. "You're as green as summer, boy. You've never been up to the ice. If I send a regiment, they might be a hundred miles off. If I send scouts, they'll probably never come back. Either way, we'd be down good men when Fey tells us where to go. Things would be all the harder then." His voice raised. "No man under my command heads after the prince until we've received direction from Mage Fey. Understood?"

"Yes, sir!" shouted his men. Spear handles thumped against paving stones.

"Yes, sir," Phoenix echoed mournfully.

"That was creepy," Larry said as he trailed after Phoenix, out of the training yard and toward the royal hall. "We were just sleeping away, and then snap! Ice everywhere. I didn't know von Karma could do something like that."

"He was threatening to freeze Deele's capital, Larry," Phoenix said, only halfway paying attention to his friend. His eyes rested on the spot where, days earlier, he'd put a sword to von Karma's neck. _If only I'd taken that blow._ The prince had smiled at him after that; was he even alive now to smile again? Helpless, he looked around the hall for any clue, any piece of anything that might tell him where von Karma had gone, or at least persuade the captain to let him begin the hunt.

"Yeah," Larry said, "but that was _them._ He froze _us._"

Phoenix didn't bother responding as he continued his search. The sound of conversation drew him toward one wall, and then toward an antechamber's door. He held up a finger for Larry to stay quiet as he listened to what sounded like an important conversation.

"You must try _harder_, Mage Fey," insisted a chancellor.

_Mage Fey?_ Phoenix thought with delight. She was back already? If Mia Fey was in the capital, the search could begin immediately. He risked peering around the doorframe and his shoulders sagged. That wasn't Mia Fey they were talking to, but her rather less impressive little sister, Maya. She grew flustered while her sister always kept her head and was still deep in her training exercises. Mia lived up to her surname, and Phoenix knew from palace gossip that the Feys were such a noble family that their honored eldest daughter was assumed to be the prince's eventual match. Mia already looked like a queen of ten years; Maya looked like the village girls back home.

"I am trying," Maya said. She sounded close to tears. "I am, I am, I..." Light flared and the chancellors gasped, then leaned in closer. Phoenix squinted at the glowing orb that had sprung up in the center of the table. Behind it, Maya shook with the effort of whatever she was doing.

"Is something wrong?" asked Mia's wavering, glowing face in the orb. "You all look a fright." Her expression fell as she heard of the previous night's assault, and even more when they shared what Phoenix had found in the royal chambers. "The king is _dead?_" she whispered. "And the prince is..." She looked away. Her eyes were filled with resolve when she turned back to them. "We're already on our fourth day of marching, but I'll turn the army around immediately. When they hear what's happened, we might make it back in three. As soon as I have access to the scrying crystals in my chamber again, I will find the prince, gentlemen. I promise you."

"Hurry," said the chancellor. "But be wary, von Karma has—" The portal snapped off and, with an irritated click of his tongue, he turned to Maya. "I was not done, young mage."

"Sorry," she panted.

"At least Fey is on her way," said the minister. "She'll know what to do. If anyone can take on von Karma, it's her."

Phoenix froze as he heard them walking toward him, then took a rigid stance to make it look like he'd been assigned to guard that span of wall. They walked past him without notice.

"Take on von Karma. Mmm. If that's even possible."

"Let sleeping dogs lie, you mean?"

"He spoke of freezing Deele solid. What if he still has that capability? And for us to launch a full assault so far north..."

"I hate to raise this point, gentlemen, but... the Feys are clearly next in line for the throne."

"Indeed. At least we're not faced with a succession struggle, I suppose. Small favors."

"We should order a regiment down the road to meet Fey's army, just in case... we certainly can't afford to lose her, as well..."

Phoenix gaped after them as they left. They were sending soldiers _south?_ To protect Mia Fey? _They've given up on him,_ Phoenix thought with shock. It didn't even sound like palace scheming; those men had dutifully shifted their allegiance to the Fey line without any power grabs of their own. Helpless, he stared around the royal hall. It looked the same as ever, but empty and silent. The summer sun had melted most of the ice outside, and though flowers had succumbed to shock, the trees were still green and strong as the last frost dripped free of their leaves. It was a beautiful day, ripe with birdsong, and everyone from the captain of the guards to the royal chancellor was ready to bury a man who might yet be alive.

_No man under my command heads after the prince,_ Phoenix heard in his head.

Right, then.

He reached to where a badge held his half-cloak in place and let it fall to the ground with a metallic clatter. The guard's cloak puddled on top of it as Phoenix walked into the antechamber, slammed his hands on the desk, and leaned close to Maya Fey. "Can you use your sister's scrying crystals?"

She looked up. "Um. Who are you?"

"Not a guard. Phoenix Wright. That's not important. I need your help."

Maya blinked owlishly at him. "Could you pick one answer, maybe?"

He hissed in irritation and began to explain, only to be interrupted with a clearing throat. Phoenix sighed. "Larry, now is not the time."

"He _is_ a guard," Larry insisted, and held his abandoned cloak out to him with a smile. "You dropped this, Nick."

"I didn't drop it," Phoenix said as he bundled the material and threw it to a far corner of the room. "I'm leaving the guards. You should probably go back to the barracks and pretend you never heard this, because I don't want you to get in trouble. Mage Fey, I need your help to find the prince. I heard that..." He took a deep breath as the reality of the situation struck him. The only two people in the world who might be able to help him were Mia and Maya Fey, and they were the exact two people who would be instantly raised from nobility to royalty if Miles Edgeworth never returned. Could he trust them? Trust her? It seemed impossible.

"Heard what?" asked Maya. Her youthful face pulled into a frown.

He couldn't think of any answer but the truth. All Phoenix could hope was that their loyalty was stronger to the crown than to opportunism. "I heard that nearly everyone in this palace is willing to let the prince die, because no one's going to chase after him soon enough to make any difference. So. Can you use your sister's scrying crystals?"

"What?" Maya asked in disbelief. "They're going to let him..." Her jaw set and she stood. "Come on, Not Important Phoenix Wright. We have to save the prince!"

Relief made Phoenix grin, and it grew when Maya took off for the mages' tower at a full run. He hurried after her but grimaced when he heard armor clanking behind him. "Go back, Larry!" he shouted over his shoulder. "I don't want you to get into trouble!"

"But that's what I do!" Larry shouted back, sounding genuinely confused at the idea of doing the logical, proper thing. He dutifully tagged along with Maya and Phoenix to the Feys' chambers, no matter how many times Phoenix ordered him back. "You're talking about going north, Nick. North! To take on von Karma! It's the stupidest idea I've ever heard of in my life, and so I've gotta go with you."

"Wait." Phoenix blinked. "What? No, you're going back to the barracks."

Larry threw his cloak away with an impish smile. "We're in this together, right? We left home together and I'm not about to let you go off alone. Especially not with this cutie! Gimmee a chance, Nick! You can't hog all the girls!"

"What? Girls? Huh? What cutie?" Phoenix spun on his heel and yelped. "Mage Fey, no!"

"Call me Maya," the girl said with determination as she packed a rucksack. "If he's in trouble, then I'm not going to stay here and have the ministers yell at me while they're not even trying to save the prince! Besides, Mia wants to focus on her magical work, not get forced into totally taking over as queen. And I don't want to be a princess, either. I've seen all the royal meetings the prince has to go to and they're _boring._"

"All I need you to do," Phoenix said patiently, "is to use that scrying crystal and tell me where to go. _Me,_ not me and Larry."

"Well," Maya said and hefted her rucksack over one shoulder, "I can't use them as well as Mia can. She could look and see exactly where von Karma is hiding, but all I'll be able to do is use them as a compass on the road. So you'd better take me along. Besides, I can request horses while _you'd_ have to steal some from the guards' stable. Since you quit, and all."

"You should listen to the cutie," Larry said.

What was even _happening?_ Phoenix sighed, but there was no time to waste. The image of King Gregory's corpse on that bed lurked every time he closed his eyes, and if the prince had been taken instead of also killed, whatever was being done to him must be worse. "We'll need nine horses," he eventually said. "Three to ride, and then two replacements apiece. We'll be riding hard, okay? Dress warm and pack food. It sounds like it'll be pretty rough up north."

"With two extra horses apiece, we could bring a lot of food," Maya mused.

"Don't overload them! We'll want them to be fresh when we need to change." _Oh, hell. I really have accepted that they're coming along, haven't I?_ Well, if they were going to be traveling companions, they should all get along. "Thank you for your help, Mage Fey. Maya, I mean. And... thanks, Larry." _I guess._

"Stop wasting time, Nick!" Larry said as he disappeared down the stairs.

"Yeah, Nick!" Maya echoed as she followed him.

After one last beat to wonder what had just taken place, Phoenix focused, ran down the stairs, and soon met Maya at the north gate. They set off at a run, past the bonfires set by wary farmers, and kept the mountains straight ahead. The two ranges met at a knife-sharp angle. When Phoenix tried to picture where the Guidestar had stood over that bridge of snow, he remembered that it hung above that pass between them. "I think we'll go—"

"There," Maya said as she stared into her crystal, and flung her arm out ahead. Her finger pointed at the mountain pass.

Dust rose under their horses' hooves and the warm scent of drying grass filled Phoenix's lungs. The world around them smelled of life and summer. But far ahead, unnatural clouds rose over the pass and snow capped the peaks that framed it. From one churning cloud, lightning flared.

He hurried his mount onward.


	3. Chapter 3

They made good time. Angelos was closer to the mountains than it looked, and by the end of the night the ground angled upward under their horses' hooves. Phoenix tugged his cloak around him as he squinted at the first light of dawn bouncing off the snow ahead. "This isn't natural," he mused. "It got too cold too fast."

Maya finished pulling on her gloves and yawned. They were going to have to stop soon, as little as Phoenix wanted to. They'd already burned through their first mounts and set them loose, and they couldn't afford to lose more horses to exhaustion and ice. "These mountain ranges are filled with abandoned silver mines."

Phoenix and Larry blinked at her. "I think she expected that to make sense," Larry said.

In a huff, Maya yanked one glove further on and explained, "Meaning these mountains are _filled_ with silver veins. Ice mages love silver more than anything." She considered that. "Well. More than anything but ice. When the first northern mages settled up there, they were able to turn the entire ranges into oversized ley lines because of all the silver in them. Pretty soon the mines got too cold to work in. Bigger and more powerful ice mages moved to these mountains because of all of that power, and by now, it's eternal winter hundreds of miles further south than it should be."

Larry whistled, impressed, and Maya blushed. "Sorry. I just talked a lot, didn't I? That's the kind of stuff I had to learn growing up."

"You totally made me believe all of it," Larry assured her.

"Well, good! Because it's true."

"Now I believe it even more."

_Their children would be fascinating,_ Phoenix thought. "We all look ready to fall off our horses," he said as they rounded a turn and the road turned further upward, rockier and harsher than what lay behind them. "We need to get some sleep before we go any further."

"No, no," Maya insisted, and yawned again. "I'm good. We gotta save Prince Miles. Let's go. Beat you to the castle."

Phoenix couldn't help but smile, just a bit. "You know you're... not moving any more, right?"

Maya looked down at her horse, sighed, and looked back up. "Okay, let's stop."

As they were still at the edge of greenery and life, out of von Karma's territory, it was easy to find wood for a fire and it felt safe to have that smoke plume showing their location. After Phoenix considered all that, he looked up from the potato he was roasting and frowned. "Maya... I've only ever heard of von Karma as an ice mage from these mountains."

She nibbled on a heel of bread and cheese. "Uh huh."

Phoenix rested his chin in his palm and his frown deepened. "But that doesn't make any sense."

"Don't argue with the cutie, Nick," Larry lectured, right before he tried to take a bite of his potato without letting the outside cool.

They both ignored Larry's pained noises. "If this is such a huge focal point for magical power," Phoenix asked, "then why is there no one here but von Karma? You said that a lot of northern mages moved to these mountains over the centuries, but by now it's only him."

"Oh," Maya said, clearly surprised at a question she'd never considered in her studies. "Well. The mountains are still definitely a magical resource for anyone with his powers, so they still have to be attractive." She mirrored Phoenix's thoughtful pose. "I guess the most likely answer is that von Karma's managed to chase everyone else off."

That was, unfortunately, the only explanation Phoenix had thought of. They weren't just going up against a powerful ice mage, then; they might be going up against the strongest one there was. It was said that Manfred von Karma had never lost a battle, but he'd never considered that other mages might be counted in that total. Disheartening to say the least, and yet there was no choice before him: he had to rescue the prince, as simple as that.

His resolve must have shown, for Maya got a curious expression as she tested their potatoes. "Why are you doing this? Both of you? I'm a Fey, so it's my job to protect the kingdom however I can. But you two were just guards whose captain told you to wait for more orders. Instead, you're taking on von Karma in his own home."

Though he opened his mouth to reply, Phoenix instead closed it and shook his head. "It's stupid," he replied when his warm cheeks had cooled.

Larry smirked knowingly. "If you don't tell her, I will."

After shooting a pained look at his friend, Phoenix sighed and nodded. Yes, Larry most certainly would, and he'd probably put the worst possible slant on it. Memories pressed down, dragging him back to the hardest time in his life. "My family owned the worst farm in our village. It kept getting flooded whenever the river got high, and eventually we had to forget about planting one whole field because of rot." He pointed at Larry. "They lived next door. They'd always find food to share with us so we wouldn't go hungry during the winter, but they still had to charge us something so they could buy more seed next year. Season after season, my family just kept getting into worse debt."

"You would have gone hungry without his family?" Maya repeated, like the concept was hard to fathom. She'd grown up noble, Phoenix reminded himself; she'd probably never gone more than ten minutes with a growling stomach before the kitchens made something for her. And, from the look of those bulging saddlebags on her horse, she went through a lot of food.

"That's right." He hugged himself and glared at the sound of wind whistling through the northern mountains. "I hate winter. Every time it gets cold I remember wondering whether we'll have enough to eat or whether we'll need to beg for help again."

Maya nodded slowly. "That doesn't answer why you care so much about the prince, though."

"There was a royal procession," Phoenix remembered. "It was the biggest thing I'd ever seen in my life. I didn't know horses could get that tall or shiny. And people wore _colors_, and..." He shook his head. No need to go into everything, even if he could still see the line's brilliant approach. "They didn't even tell us why they'd come, though we found out that the prince wanted to see the lands he'd rule. We mostly cared about the feast."

"It was amazing!" Larry cut in. "They paid Kudo a whole gold crown apiece for his pigs and bought enough to feed everyone! Twice!" He sighed with the memory and rubbed his belly. "The whole village smelled like roasting pig for days." Jerking his thumb toward Phoenix, he added, "Except that this guy barely got to taste it."

"Don't tell me the prince made you pay for the food!" Maya gasped.

"No, no!" Phoenix waved his hands in front of him. "They paid for everyone's food, and brought wine and candied fruit in barrels, and... no, no. The jerks down the road decided that they wanted more pig and it was funnier for them to take mine instead of going back to the spit for a fresh cut." His face burned with the memory. "That turned into not letting _me_ go back for more, because I'd 'embarrass the village' if the palace people saw me."

Maya's fists clenched. "Did you punch them? In the nose?"

"They were big, and there were a lot of them." Phoenix half-smiled and clapped his friend on the shoulder. "Larry was still ready to take a swing, though."

Larry nodded, and grinned when Maya smiled approvingly at him. She turned back to Phoenix and asked, "So what happened next?"

His heart still swelled at the recollection. He could remember being that small, scraggly boy in scratchy clothes, surrounded by all the boys who'd decided he was the best amusement to be had in their backwater town. "The prince noticed."

Even clearer than his pain were the memories of Prince Miles frowning as he stood, walking away from the royal table, and placing himself between Phoenix and his aggressors. Their bullying had instantly stopped, of course, but the prince offered more than his presence. "He saw what rough shape I was in, and..." Phoenix swallowed hard. "And he cared. He got a minister from their table and said that no one should go hungry like I clearly was. They started an investigation. It was the minister who was talking to me and my parents, but I kept seeing him for the next few days looking into things himself." The prince's bright clothes had stood out among the grungy town, but Phoenix hadn't focused on his clothes. He'd never expected the prince to look so _kind._

"They were only supposed to be there for a day," Larry added. "They stayed for three days while they looked into every nook and cranny of our little place."

"It turned out," Phoenix said, "that some other families had set up irrigation ditches. They diverted their overflow into our fields, since it was the lowest. It wasn't just the river flooding; our land _never_ had a chance to dry out because of them." He smiled lopsidedly. "Prince Miles brought them into the middle of the town square and asked why they thought they were owed the right to bigger profits in exchange for my family's health. He'd seen the overflow himself and he was outraged. They'd tried to hide it by directing the flow through a bunch of ivy on the side of a hill, so you wouldn't notice it under the leaves, but he'd found it. Next thing I knew, the crown had paid off my family's debt and given them new lands from their own holdings, on top of some hills with its own creek. We weren't ever hungry again." Phoenix hugged his knees to his chest. "Then they left. They had their tour to finish."

"Wow," Maya said softly. "Yeah, that'd do it."

"It was a pretty big deal," Larry agreed, scratching his ear, "and that was a great story, but why'd you tell it, Nick?"

"Because it's why I'm hunting for the prince, Larry," Phoenix reminded him. The man's attention span could make a gnat look wise.

"No, you just _noticed_ the prince because he came to our village. You moved all the way to Angelos and went off to rescue him because you think he's pretty."

As Maya gawked, then laughed, Phoenix demanded, "What? I do not! Shut your mouth, Larry!"

"Well... handsome, I guess."

"Shut up!" Hands in his hair, he tried to curl into a tight ball of humiliation. Even if he agreed with Larry's words—and unfortunately, he did—he'd never said it to himself so formally before, nor had he thought that anyone had noticed. It took him a few breaths before he felt Maya's hand tracing light circles on his back.

"It's all right," she assured him. "Okay, totally changing the entire course of your life for a man because he was nice to you once is a little extreme, but—"

"We need to stop talking about me," Phoenix said firmly, "and eat our potatoes."

"I grew up around the palace, you know," Maya said as she picked at her meal and waited for the steam to fade. "He's going to be a great king. He idolizes..." Her voice quieted and her head drooped. "He idolized his father. I can't believe King Gregory is actually dead." With a deep, shaky breath, she finished, "He's too serious by half, even for a king, but he works hard and he's very fair and he'll be really good for the kingdom."

Her eyes were soft and sad when Phoenix met her gaze. "And," Maya gently continued, "when we rescue him and bring him home, he's going to need an heir someday. He and my sister are practically engaged already. She's not thrilled, but she's all right with it. She'll play the queen role when she needs to, but let him handle most of it while she focuses on her studies. They've talked about it, Nick. It's going to happen."

"I know," he said brusquely, stabbed a potato with his knife, and wrenched it open. "All I am is someone who used to be a royal guard, trying to bring back the prince so he can be king. That's _all._"

"Who thinks he's pretty," Larry helpfully added.

A glower, then Phoenix announced, "I'm going to sleep." Stalking off, he bundled himself against the light of the rising sun. Sleep never came.


	4. Chapter 4

Sleep boosted Maya and Larry's spirits and they were soon ready to head into the winds whistling through the mountain pass. Though Phoenix hadn't slept, determination drove him onward. _You saved me from starving. I don't even know what I'm saving you from, but I'll do the same. I'll save you._ He swallowed. _Save you for Mia Fey._

Breath steamed as they crested a summit and the rocks around them began to disappear under a soft quilt of snow. That quilt was threadbare at first, but by five miles down the road there was nothing but white. Phoenix glanced over his shoulder at the mountain pass a thousand feet up, then back at the valley floor that looked snowier than the peaks. They kept getting lower, and should have gotten warmer, but fresh flakes fell for the first time when they returned to the flatlands. _We're closer to von Karma_, Phoenix thought grimly and pulled his cloak tight.

It was beautiful even to someone who hated winter. This was the sort of winter that he'd been able to recognize after they were in their new house on the hill, with food in their cellar and livestock warm in their barn. He would never love the season, not after the memories of staring at the tiny fire they could barely afford to light, but the midwinter holidays felt far different with a meal in his belly.

Thick firs bowed under their covers. A fox bounded after some prey, its ghostly form trailing a black-tipped tail. Snow glittered like diamonds under the slightest brush of sunlight and the very air sparkled as the next beam moved across it. "I love winter," Maya said happily as she brushed her hand through the air. "It's so powdery here."

For an answer, Phoenix tugged his scarf higher. The previous summer he'd been assigned to guard the king during his visit to a southern port. All this snow might appeal to people who liked that sort of thing, but he'd rather be looking at turquoise waters and wondering if dolphins really existed. "So where to next?"

"We can't hear you with that scarf in your mouth, Nick," Larry said. He added, "Don't bundle up too much right away, or you won't have any more left to put on! It's gotta get even colder as we come near von Karma, right?"

"Thanks for the advice," Phoenix said dryly and tugged his scarf back down. Worse? He didn't know whether dealing with the snow and wind was worse, or what it said about his ridiculous feelings that he never once considered leaving Prince Miles to his fate. _He must be freezing._

Maya had gone quiet as she focused on her scrying crystals. Their pace slowed as she worked, and slowed more as they left the road to follow the only directions she could give. That road had been of little use for guiding them, anyway; it was only a slightly smoother stretch of snow, but at least they didn't have to wind around trees or fear some hidden crevasse. "The light is stronger, now," she said as she tucked them away in her belt pouch. "We're getting closer."

"So what's the plan once we're in there?" Larry asked. They walked a quarter mile in silence and he added, "We... we have a plan, right?"

"Well." Phoenix swallowed. "I. Ah. I'll improvise."

"We're going up one of the strongest sorcerers in the world and your plan is 'I'll improvise?'" Maya asked dubiously.

"I'm good on my feet."

"Having no plan isn't a plan!" Maya fumbled open another pouch and dug through the charms and herbs inside. "Let me see what I can do."

"You're lucky I'm such a good friend," Larry said, riding up even with Phoenix, "or I wouldn't come with you on this crazy ride."

"You know," Phoenix said, "I never asked you to come."

"Duh, that's why I'm such a good friend." When Phoenix couldn't help but chuckle, Larry's smile grew. "Now, since I am your best friend and all, promise your best friend that you'll come up with a really great plan to help us get in and out again."

"I'll do my best."

"Great!" Larry adjusted the lead rope of his backup horse, hummed a few notes, and turned back to Phoenix. "So I gave you a minute, what's the plan?"

As he rolled his eyes, Maya looked up from her work and grinned. "I think I can do something to help. Come here, Nick." After he dropped back even with the girl, she took his hand in hers and, much to his dismay, stripped it of its glove. "This will feel strange, but I think it might work."

"Feel strange?" he repeated as she poured a thick golden oil into his palm. It glimmered like summer sunlight, then sank into his skin as she began to recite words in some unfamiliar language. Blessed warmth spread up his forearm. Gasping as much from relief as surprise, Phoenix tugged back his sleeve enough to watch the glowing heat swim up the veins at his wrist. Stiffness in his elbow faded as the warmth reached it; he hadn't even realized how poorly he'd dealt with the cold until that joint loosened. It felt like sinking into a warm bath and he sighed with relief. "Thanks."

"Give it a second," Maya said ominously.

"...Give it a second?" Phoenix repeated. His sighs turned into short gasps as the heat built. The warm bath became a hot one, and then so close to scalding that he would have leapt free of the water if only he could. For one agonizing second he was standing in a blazing fire, in too much pain to even scream. Then it was gone. All that remained was a quiet warmth that burned steadily inside him. Panting, Phoenix said, "Warn me, next time!"

Maya smirked and returned his glove. He was glad to have it back; the cold no longer felt ready to kill him, but he could still feel it harsh against his skin. "Do you wish I hadn't done that?"

Phoenix didn't say anything as they walked past a few trees. It felt like he was sitting by a fire back home, even as the unnatural snow fell. "Well. No."

"See? Trust me!" They rode another mile in relative silence, broken only by Maya's apologies to Larry for not being able to replicate the spell with her scanty supplies. "Your name should be lucky for us up there, Nick."

Phoenix blinked, then grinned. "Why, because no matter what I do, it'll be Wright?"

Maya glared. "No. And that's horrible. Don't say it again." As his head drooped, she said, "I'm talking about _Phoenix_, duh. We're heading into a land of ice and you're named after a mythical bird of fire." At his blank reaction, Maya smirked and asked, "You did know what your name meant, right?"

"No, but I did always think it was a little weird," he admitted.

Excitedly, Larry leaned in and asked, "So what's a Larry?"

"Um. Huh?"

"If a Phoenix is a firebird, then what's a Larry?"

Maya stared at him for a long, silent beat. "That's. You don't... fine. A dragon. A Larry is a dragon. It's a big, scary dragon with claws made of solid... uh..."

"Sapphires?" Larry asked, his hands clutched to his chest in excitement.

"Sure, why not?" Maya said, shrugging.

"Sapphires are my birthstone," Larry said with satisfaction and rode on ahead.

From the look on Maya's face as she watched him go, Phoenix couldn't tell whether she found his friend endearing or obnoxious. It was a common problem when faced with Larry Butz, but his loyalty had always kept Phoenix mostly on the endearing side of the scale. He felt like he had little to offer the world, not compared to brilliant princes or talented mages, but he could at least be brave and true.

Turning to Phoenix as he mused on his friend and their places in the world, Maya asked, "Did you see a lot of sapphires in your old town?"

_No, we saw a lot of cows and what they left in the fields._ "Hardly. And it's not like we got paid in them at the palace, either." Phoenix grinned. "But he likes to flirt with girls by comparing them to things, and so he had to look up flowers and gemstones in a lot of different colors."

"Oh," Maya said, giggling. "He's not very good at coming up with comparisons for brown eyes, but at least I know that he was trying. So what—"

With a roar of cracking ice, Larry vanished from sight. His scream cut off in an instant. That awful silence drove Phoenix forward at a run, his heart thudding. Larry's backup horse stood there, its lead limp against the snow, but Larry himself and his mount had vanished below.

_"Larry!"_ Phoenix screamed, throwing himself off his horse and toward the jagged hole. He expected to find churning grey water that had swallowed his friend, but instead saw Larry at the bottom of a rocky gorge twenty feet down. His horse's leg turned at an unnatural angle as it rested on top of her motionless rider. When Phoenix closed his eyes, trying to convince himself that this wasn't happening, he saw the dead king with a spear through his heart. Opening his eyes with a gasp showed his best friend's body. He staggered backward, sick and dizzy.

"Ow," he heard on the wind. Phoenix forced himself back to the edge as Maya joined him and they both saw Larry moving in obvious pain. "My horse," Larry whimpered. Trying to move his obviously broken leg earned a scream from his agonized mount.

"Lower me down," Maya demanded, retrieving a length of rope from her saddlebags. "I think I have enough oil of sunthorn to heal his leg."

"No!" Larry shouted as he saw her approach him with magic building between her outstretched hands. "Take care of Buttercup!"

_He named the horse? It's not even his._ "Larry," Phoenix shouted, though it made him feel like a heel, "we... we have other horses. Let her heal your leg."

"Heal. Buttercup," Larry insisted when Maya approached him again.

She looked between the two, torn, and then up at Phoenix. He couldn't find it in him to argue with Larry's wishes, even though he wanted a second sword in that castle. Some part of him insisted that anything less would mean Prince Miles' doom. Yet... Larry, at least, understood what had happened when he fell. Buttercup's wild eyes knew nothing but pain and fear, and Phoenix had never been good with dealing with any sort of suffering right in front of him. When Maya hesitated, then reached out to the horse instead of its rider, Phoenix couldn't argue with her choice.

"Good," Larry panted as his horse scrambled back to her hooves. "Good. Now get me up into the saddle, Maya."

She moved to help, but Phoenix shouted down at them, "No, Maya. Larry... you need to stay down there." He looked along the small canyon and saw a tumble of rocks that led up to more ice, which they could presumably break. "The riding's going to get harder, the weather's going to get colder, and you need to stay out of the wind."

"Nick?" Larry asked as Phoenix's meaning sunk in. "You don't mean..."

"Maya, see if you can open up that trail. Get all of the horses down there and stay safe. I want you to look after Larry."

"You can't go on alone, Nick!" Maya shouted. "You don't even know where to go!"

He squinted into the howling wind. At first it looked like they'd been heading toward a lone peak separated from its kin in the ranges, but by now he could make out rocks that looked too sharp and regular to be anything made by nature. "Yes, I do!" Cold tore at him and he staggered back a few steps before he met the wind with determination. It had come from the direction he was looking at, and so his destination seemed even more certain. "If I don't come back... get him home."

"Nick, no!" Larry shouted.

"Get the horses down into the canyon!" Phoenix shouted back. "Don't let them freeze!" Maya and Larry pleaded with him to wait, to let them help, to not go on alone. He ignored them. He'd always been prepared to do this alone and he wasn't about to let others kill themselves on his behalf. With a click of his tongue, he guided his horse around the canyon. Soon their screams faded into the wind.

Now that he knew it was ice below the snow, his trek seemed worse than before. The beautiful soft quilt over the trees had turned into something slick and hard and twisted, broken by harsh grey stone instead of proud firs. The gusts of wind against his face became regular, then constant. Tears froze on his cheeks as his eyes began to water. His scarf went up again as much for that as the cold; Maya's spell still burned inside him. _This looks more like the winters I remember,_ Phoenix thought grimly when he'd pushed on for another hour, or maybe three, or five. _This is the sort of winter that kills you._ The light never seemed to change here. It was always thin and unnatural, like weak grey daylight under starry black. He'd heard tales of the dancing northern skies, but these lights weren't dancing; they were writhing in agony.

His horse faltered and Phoenix's heart lurched.

"Come on, boy," he whispered into the horse's ear, and rubbed the gelding's neck where he'd leaned flat against it. "Come on, you can do it, you can make it." _Please_, he begged. _Please, please._ The snow was too deep. He needed a horse's long legs, not his own. He could see von Karma's castle clearly, now, but he'd never make it walking. Not up that hill. Not in this snow.

Warmth flowed from his body and his horse plunged forward.

Shivering as he adjusted to temperatures that felt ten degrees colder, Phoenix sighed in relief. _Thank you, Maya._ He didn't know how much more of the spell he could let leech out of him, but he could at least spare that much. And some things were more important than shivering.

The gates, tall and spiked, weren't guarded by anything but the wind. After a moment to gather his courage, Phoenix dismounted and found a gatehouse for his mount. "Stay here," he murmured and rubbed the gelding's nose. There were enough oats in its bags for another meal, and so he put on the feedbag before he left. "Stay out of the cold."

Once inside the courtyard, the sentry wind vanished. It was a small palace, suitable for a local lord by the size, but unlike anything he'd seen on his tours of the kingdom. Shards of rock topped towers made of solid ice. Thick, rune-covered silver bands circled each one, and Phoenix swallowed as he remembered Maya's lecture about how the metal enhanced northern magic. Gathering his courage, he inched toward the muddy shadows under one wall and, in that comparative safety, snuck toward the main door.

If not for Maya's spell his feet would be numb, but he could feel the joints between every thick block of ice, the runes carved under his soles, the decorative line of snowflakes that looked so out of place in a castle built for war. As well, there was a silver pedestal in the middle of the courtyard, topped with an enormous jewel. An oddly-shaped ruby _inside_ a diamond floated a foot above the pedestal's crown, turning slowly. He frowned, then put it out of his mind and focused again on not being seen. Perhaps Manfred was out somewhere plotting his revenge. Perhaps he could find Prince Miles and vanish.

Perhaps Prince Miles would be standing there when he opened the door.

"Prince!" Phoenix gasped, delighted, and fell to one knee. "I'm here to rescue you!"

The prince said nothing.

"I'm... Phoenix Wright," Phoenix said uncertainly into the silence. He returned to his feet and only then really _looked_ at who stood before him.

Prince Miles was no longer in the bright colors of court, but in a silver-trimmed outfit of northern cut. Save for that thin trim, it was flawless white from collar to boots. His hair was even lighter than before, as was his skin, and his eyes—

Phoenix took a step backward before he could help himself. "Prince?" he asked in a wavering voice. "Miles?"

Those eyes like a gentle rainstorm flashed unearthly white, then to the blue of a glacier's heart. "Take Wright to a cell," the prince ordered.

Something cold grabbed Phoenix's wrists. He had a second to struggle before more footsteps sounded. After one sharp cry of pain, the world turned as dark as the night sky and the floor slammed up to greet him.


	5. Chapter 5

Manfred von Karma was looking at Phoenix when he woke. A thin, hungry smile spread across his bloodless face. His clothing was as white as what Prince Miles had worn at the front door, though trimmed with far more silver in angular patterns. Fine chains wrapped his neck and dangled runic pendants over his heart. In sum, he was colored to match the dungeon around him: built of solid ice and stone and lit by coruscating ivory orbs that hung like lanterns on the wall. "I remember you, whelp," von Karma said. "You dared to threaten me."

Phoenix sat up and regretted it. He'd been sprawled against a block of ice and so a thin strip of skin tore off his cheek when he lurched. He barely muffled a cry of pain. _Don't show weakness,_ his throbbing head insisted. _Don't let him see._

Once he took in his situation, there seemed to be little point in feigning confidence. Foot-wide quartz slabs circled him and he was behind bars of ice as thick as his bicep. "Let him go," he mumbled anyway, then clutched his head.

"Are you truly all that Angelos has sent to save their lost prince?" With a smirk, von Karma turned. "This is how they care for you, _Your Grace."_

Phoenix ignored the mocking words, tumbled off his bed, and slid his way to the bars. From that angle he could see where the prince stood silently in a far corner. Miles looked carved from the ice itself. His features were still fine and angular, but any emotions were as dead as winter. Though his body screamed for rest and his headache pounded at any motion, Phoenix forced himself to rise. "I'm a forward scout," he lied. "Whoever doesn't return will draw an entire army in that direction."

"That sounds terribly dangerous," von Karma said. His smile showed teeth. "For them."

Ignoring von Karma and his own pain, Phoenix pushed as far against the bars as he could. "Prince! I'm going to save you, I swear." _Looking at him... it's hard to remember he's the same person._ Gregory's black hair had been passed on as light brown to his son, but the man before him was colored like a snowstorm. It looked strange with his youthful face, and stranger with pale skin that lacked the normal flush across nose and cheeks in the cold. No normal human had color-changing irises like that, and certainly not in glowing white or cyan. "Whatever magic he's done to you," Phoenix continued with determination, "I will save you from."

"He's lying," said Miles, stepping forward.

"Indeed," von Karma said. "He won't even be able to save himself." He leaned closer. "Do not end a sentence with a preposition. Doing so demonstrates your base birth." The arrogance behind that advice angered Phoenix nearly as much as his cell.

"True," Miles agreed, "and to be certain, his mother was no more refined than some sow in the mud." Though von Karma's arrogance had angered Phoenix, this shattered him. Where was that prince who'd saved his entire family from starvation? "I was, however, not referring to that as his lie. Wright has been a guard for a year at most and is unremarkable in his performance. He is impetuous, unreliable, and gives no particular indicators of intelligence. He would never be trusted as a forward scout. He is, however, a great enough fool to attempt a rescue on his own."

"Mmm." Manfred studied Phoenix. "He was certainly foolish enough to threaten me with a simple sword in the royal hall, even though he knew me as High Mage of the realm."

The sorcerer's words were magpie's chatter to Phoenix. In quiet horror, he stared at Miles and asked, "What happened to you?"

"I was improved." Miles' eyes flashed black like the night sky, then back to white. "May I take my leave?"

"You wish to watch its change?" von Karma asked with a smirk, and inclined his head when Miles nodded. "Feel free. A greater future awaits you. Anticipate it."

Miles Edgeworth turned and walked away from Phoenix's cell, then disappeared around a corner. His footing was as secure on the icy floor as von Karma's. The steps were unnaturally paced, like he was a soldier marching.

"What did you _do_ to him?" Phoenix yelled, his hands tight around the cell's bars. If only it were Manfred's neck, instead. "You bastard, what did you do?"

"Didn't you hear him? He was _improved._" Laughing, von Karma gestured after Miles. "He actually believes that. I always knew I was a great enough mage to freeze a city or army, but even I wondered whether my powers could change a heart. It's been a thousand years. The magic was thought lost."

"Change a heart?" The idea made his stomach lurch.

"Everything good in him has been warped," von Karma said. As he grinned again, his teeth looked more like fangs. "The sight of his own beautiful home would sicken him. All that remains in his chest is disdain. Cruelty. Hatred. He would as soon slaughter his old subjects as rule them." Shadows gathered in the hollows of von Karma's face. "And soon he will be my subject, for all eternity."

"You're not getting away with this," Phoenix said. The threat sounded brittle.

"Did you notice that pedestal when you broke into my castle?" von Karma continued. "In the courtyard, with the gem at its top?"

"Yes," Phoenix said uncertainly. He remembered it, now; that strangely layered stone with a ruby inside a diamond. It had been larger than any jewel he'd seen in Gregory's court.

"Did you notice its shape?"

"I don't..."

"Can you truly not see where this is going?" Manfred shook his head. "The brat was right about something, after all: you are indeed idiotic. It's his heart, you fool."

Phoenix swallowed. "What?"

"When I brought him here, I strapped him down to a block much like that one." He gestured dismissively at Phoenix's cell. "He fought, of course, but cuffs at his joints kept him in place. After I carved the runes on those silver bands, he could no longer even scream. I spoke the words of magic, broke open his chest like glass, and ripped out his beating heart. He couldn't make even one sound as his heart turned hard and still in my hand." Manfred looked up, presumably toward that spot in the courtyard. "Flesh can't survive outside the body and so the spell changed it to ruby. As the spell takes hold more by the hour, that color fades and diamond takes its place. The cavity in his chest has filled with solid ice."

This was far beyond anything that Phoenix had imagined. "Let him go," Phoenix whispered. "Please."

"When all of the ruby is gone," Manfred continued like he hadn't spoken, "the heart will shatter. Even diamond isn't as strong as my magic. What was once the man called Miles Edgeworth will blow away on the wind or settle itself like stars in the sky. His body will be left here in my palace, bleached of every drop of color and life it once held. Without my permission, that body can never cross the snowflake symbols in the courtyard, even if it stays in this palace for a thousand years. Ten thousand. But I will give it permission, of course." Manfred's eyes flashed like writhing auroras. "I will have turned it into an agent of Angelos' destruction, and with their own prince's body I will destroy that town and every life in it."

"You bastard," Phoenix whispered. His fist slammed against an ice bar. "You bastard! You kill the king, you torture the prince... why? Why are you doing..." His voice cut off as his choked throat failed him.

"Why?" von Karma asked. His voice cut the air like a whip. "You dare ask me _why_ after you watched that worthless family humiliate me? I am perfect. I am flawless. I refuse to be made the fool, and woe to those who think otherwise!"

Phoenix fell to the ground, numb. He closed his eyes and shuddered. King Gregory's corpse again filled his vision, but it hurt for a different reason than before. The king had died from blood loss and the ice had been nothing more than a sword. Compared to this, that killing was a kindness. "Please let him go," he whispered uselessly. To warp the kind soul who had saved his life? To use him to kill the innocents he should have protected? And then to doom him to possible eternity inside this northern hell? It was worse than a thousand simple regicides. "Give him a chance, just a _chance._ Let... let him try to fight it!" Phoenix bargained desperately, his head jerking back up. "There's still good inside him somewhere, and so if he can just overcome your spell, you'll agree to let him—"

Never in his life had he heard such mocking laughter. "Such faith," von Karma said. "You place such faith in a man who hates you. Do you truly think that's a wise idea? To trust in the young Prince Edgeworth?"

"Yes," Phoenix growled.

With a smile, von Karma waved his hand and the ice bars retreated into the stone below. Phoenix made no effort to run. If he showed his back to von Karma, it seemed certain that he'd take a blow to match the king's. "The days here can blend into each other and it will take some time yet before the heart turns to diamond. I had thought to leave you down here until you froze, but perhaps you'd like to attempt to _save_ the prince for a little comic relief, hmm?"

"You're letting me out?" Phoenix asked warily. This seemed too good to be true.

"There is no death so crushing," Manfred von Karma said, and forced Phoenix to meet his eyes with an icy finger under his chin, "as that of hope. Yes. I want you to try to _save_ him. Perhaps he will destroy you himself. If not, you will watch as his heart shatters into starlight and he becomes enslaved to this place forever. Then I will allow you to kill yourself to atone for your failure.

"Welcome to my home, Phoenix Wright," Manfred von Karma finished, and gestured to the doorway with a flourish of his hand. "It's been far too long without a court jester."

Phoenix watched him suspiciously at every step, but von Karma let him leave without complaint. He exited the dungeon carefully, always holding onto the wall with one hand, and sagged with relief when he hit the hallway and felt solid stone under his feet. His pace sped and his aching body took the stairs at a run. As it whipped by, the air made him feel like he was surrounded by a thin layer of ice even though Maya's spell still burned within him.

He swallowed as he reached the courtyard. Any layer of ice around him seemed suddenly unimportant; the only thing that mattered was that layer of diamond on the heart. It glittered. The heart had to still be half ruby, at least, but that wasn't enough.

"Manfred was right." Phoenix turned and saw Miles emerging from the shadows. He stared at his own heart dispassionately. "All of Deele will freeze for their governor's crimes. If the citizenry knows that no disloyalty to the crown is tolerated, they will tear down their own leaders before they condemn a province to death." His head tilted as he studied the heart. "So much unrest because my father didn't understand a simple rule of governance."

"This isn't you," Phoenix said. "You have to fight it. Please."

"You're in love with me, aren't you?" Miles didn't look at him as he stood with his arms folded behind his back. His words made Phoenix stagger, yet he didn't even care. "It's the only logical explanation for why you've doomed yourself. Love is a cancer. My father loved his people."

Fighting back his humiliation, Phoenix said, "And you love your father."

"Loved. I'm no longer that fool who lets his heart mislead him." A hint of a smile curved his lips. "There is nothing stronger than diamond."

"If you stay here, von Karma will kill you. Own you."

Miles looked away from the heart and studied him. "He's opened my eyes."

"Please, Miles—"

"Do not presume to call your king by his first name, Wright, and do not bother me again." He turned crisply and left, thick foxfur cloak trailing behind him.

Frustrated tears beaded and froze. Phoenix looked up as he wiped his cheeks clean and hissed when he caught where the skin had ripped. The Guidestar hung directly overhead, cold and blue and distant. By following it, anyone could be sure that they were heading straight north. To have it over him meant that he was as far north as anyone could go, and yet he knew that he was eighty miles out of the capital; maybe a hundred, at most. This place wasn't operating under the world's rules.

He took a deep breath, shivered as the cold air hit his lungs, and walked after Miles. There was no time to waste and so much to be done.


	6. Chapter 6

The sight of Miles sitting in his chambers with a bare hand extended made Phoenix feel colder than ever. He didn't appear to notice the chill at all, which was worse than if he seemed ready to freeze. He looked like an impossible something in a story, not his father's son. _A solid block of ice in his chest..._ Miles ignored Phoenix's approach as he concentrated on his palm, then smiled as a thin shard of ice formed above it. The ice spun in the air, trembled, and stretched its arms until it had formed an enormous, flawless snowflake.

It was breathtaking.

That was the snow that he, Larry, and Maya had traveled through when winter was still beautiful. It was more elegant than any gemstone, so perfect that he almost forgot how much he hated the season. For a few long breaths, Miles looked like he could be studying some particularly lovely rose in the palace gardens. His eyes had returned to warm raincloud grey, entirely human and enormously reassuring. _He's in there,_ Phoenix thought, letting out a shuddering breath. He'd desperately needed to see this.

The snowflake rotated slowly above Miles' palm as light trickled down from the ceiling. The sun wasn't up, yet sunlight found its way in and was thrown into a thousand perfect shades by the flake. Red and blue and gold danced along Phoenix's vision. For a few seconds, all the colors in the world were in that room.

But only for that long. The snowflake burst larger as icy spikes ripped it apart and the beautiful prism became a dark, warlike shell. As his creation turned as harsh as a steel morningstar, Miles gestured and the flake tore through the room. It struck hard. If Phoenix weren't still wearing his breastplate, it would have cut him to the heart.

"My powers are growing," Miles said with satisfaction.

Wary, Phoenix wrenched the flake free. It broke apart in his hand. Nerves fluttered as he trailed his fingers over the punctures in his armor and pictured what that would have done to his unprotected flesh. "You should be glad I had my armor on, Prince Miles. You're not a killer. When I rescue you and you go home, I'd hate for you to—"

"I am home," Miles said. "And I am a killer."

"No," Phoenix said, risking another step forward. "You're not."

"Manfred told me." Edgeworth studied his hand before pulling back on its glove. "He gave me these powers and I was unable to control them. By this time, fortunately, I have overcome that weakness. When I kill, I will mean to."

Phoenix said nothing, though his mind worked fiercely. How should he approach this? There had to be some chink in this icy armor. Some flaw in that diamond downstairs.

"He was always assigned as my tutor for some subjects, but he should have taught me everything. He's a great man." Miles walked to one of the many windows. With the Guidestar straight above, the only directions were provided by the gates along the southern walls. He looked toward them and, out of sight beyond, the mountains and palace. "I was a fool in handling Deele and should have let him freeze their capital. I was wrong to criticize him in court. He's opened my mind to that error, and for that I thank him. But it took magic to finally pry the scales from my eyes. When it first filled me, I..." His eyebrows pulled together in concern. "I erred."

"How?" Phoenix carefully asked, coming up next to him.

"I remember... ice. Huge spikes everywhere, and..." He shook his head once. Rainstorm grey appeared in a flash, then moved back to cyan, but it was enough. When that grey had shown, a flash of agony had come with it. "I speared my father through the heart."

"No, you didn't." _He is in there. He needs to know this. He wants to know this._ "Manfred told me what happened, Miles," Phoenix said with emphasis on his first name. When Miles didn't protest, he continued, encouraged. "He told me that he tore out your heart and put ice into you when you were _here._ Until you reached this palace, you were fighting him." He nodded, smiling. "I saw your chambers in Angelos after he left and there was no ice in them! Snowflakes, that's all, but no ice spears! If you had lost control—"

"I remember killing my father. I remember losing control there." Miles' hands gripped the windowsill and frost spread from them. "I was in a panic and he—"

"He put false memories into you! Can't you see what's happened? He's trying to make you take the blame for what he did to your father! Make you think that you owe him something, make you do what he wants!" Phoenix slammed his hand against Miles' chest and felt it impact something hard. A chill spread up his arm as he touched the icy patch, even through Miles' clothes and his glove. "If he can put this into you, if he can change your heart, then what's to say that he couldn't make you doubt your own mind, too?"

Miles slowly looked down at Phoenix's hand. When he looked back up, Phoenix knew that he had made a terrible mistake. "You're touching me."

He jerked his hand away. "I apologize, my... my prince."

"My father is dead and so I am your king," Miles said, grabbing Phoenix's collar and pulling him close, "and to forget that again _will_ mean your death." His eyes glowed blindingly bright. "I have let you exist on the courtesy of my patience, but I have no time for a love-addled _peasant_ who thinks he is my equal in any way."

_I don't know what to do_, Phoenix thought in a panic. His mind and instincts had entirely locked up. He'd tried to connect with Miles and had only angered him. Trying to point out the contradictions between his memories and Manfred's words was dismissed. He doubted he'd ever get this close to the man again and all he'd done was to make things worse. Never in his life had he felt so alone, even when those bullies circled him, and the only person on his side back in those days was threatening to kill him now.

No.

There had been one more person.

_Do it, Nick,_ whispered Larry's voice in his mind. _Do it. It's stupid and risky and it's probably going to kill you and you have to do it._

Miles' chest moved, but no warmth escaped his nose or mouth as he breathed. His cheeks were dusted with ice.

_We know the stories, Nick. We know how this ends. Do it. Do it do it do it do—_

Phoenix lunged forward and kissed the man he'd loved ever since that royal procession. Miles was bitterly cold, but his lips still yielded like anyone's and were so, so soft. Reaching up with both hands, Phoenix held the startled prince's face between them and focused on sharing more love than von Karma could ever hate. _You saved me. You guided me. You made me who I could be, who I was supposed to be. You're beautiful in every way a person can be and I am not going to let you die. Live. Live, please live, live._

Miles pushed him away so hard that Phoenix hit the floor. Curling into a ball and shivering as he felt more cold seep in, Phoenix looked up and watched. After touching his mouth in confusion, Miles stumbled backward, clutching his chest. _Did it work?_ Phoenix wondered. He'd passed on some of Maya's spell to Miles, the same as he had to his mount, in the desperate hope that it could melt that block of ice inside him. That imaginary Larry was right; this did feel like some grand story, and in those stories a kiss could always save the day.

Frost swirled around Miles' hand and he slammed it against his chest, panting. "You... you..." He fell to his knees and Phoenix rose, hopeful. "You tried to kill me."

Hope withered. "No," Phoenix gasped. "No! I'm trying to save you, Miles!"

"Ngh." Miles jerked and more frost swirled, then dove beneath his jacket. His panting eased. "I could feel my chest being hollowed out."

"What?" Phoenix asked in horror. "No, that's not what I was doing! It's not your heart in there, and so you have to get that ice out!"

"I felt..." Miles' eyes closed. "Pain. It filled me." His mouth formed a single silent word. Phoenix was certain that Miles had cried for his father.

_He misses him. He loves him. He feels!_ "Let me kiss you again," Phoenix said with determination and lunged forward.

Miles pulled back from him, hollow-eyed. "There's strange magic in you. I can't... I told you that I would kill you, Wright. But I..." His hands formed into clawlike curls, but opened again before more snowflakes grew. "I can't... I..."

As Phoenix grabbed for him again, giddy over his success, Miles slammed his boot against the ground and spears sharper than the one in the king's heart erupted at Phoenix's feet. "Stay back!" he ordered, inching toward the door. "Never touch me again! I'll cut you in half, slice off your head, freeze you and leave you for the wolves!"

"You don't mean that!" Phoenix laughed, even though the prince's eyes were glowing fierce blue. "Listen to yourself, Miles: you're feeling! Just let it happen and everything will be all right!"

A snarl warped that handsome face, then smoothed. "You're right," Miles said, visibly collecting himself. "I am feeling something."

"Miles?" Phoenix asked as he disappeared through the door. With a frown, he eased himself through the icy stockade and chased after him. "Stop! Let me help you more, and I can fix everything!" He had no idea where he was going, but the prince's footsteps were always just ahead. The palace was larger than it looked. By the time they returned to the courtyard, Phoenix was sweating beneath his coat.

"I am feeling the need to assert my rightful place as king," said the thing with Miles' face and, with one sweep of his hand, ripped the gatehouse apart with a blast of ice and wind. Phoenix's horse shrieked in terror, and louder still when frost began to creep up from its hooves. Phoenix could only watch in shock as his faithful mount froze to solid ice, forever leaping away from something too awful to escape. "Assert my right to the lives of every being within Angelos."

With one more gesture, his horse shattered into a thousand pieces, then blew away as snow on the wind.

"Touch me again," that _thing_ said, and walked toward Phoenix, who scrambled to let him pass, "and I _will_ kill you."

Phoenix watched him go, numb. When the snow whipped against him, it sounded like it was screaming.


	7. Chapter 7

"How goes your rescue, hero?" Manfred asked.

The mocking words hurt. It had been at least two days, Phoenix was sure, but time was strange here. It could have been longer. Perhaps he'd been failing for a year, now. He was always hungry but never starving, even though there was no food in the palace, and after giving up more of Maya's spell he was always cold but never frozen. In a very different way than the prince, he was sliding along the edge of living. He missed the sun, he missed laughter, he missed the world.

That world was beyond his reach, now. There was no wind inside the castle, yet he was constantly wracked by shivers; stepping into the gale forces outside would kill him. The spell had masked how cold this place really was. Without his horse to speed his trip back south, he wouldn't ever make it past the twisted ice. He wouldn't make it thirty minutes.

_Without my horse,_ Phoenix thought sadly. He'd felt bad when he suggested a mercy killing for a horse with a shattered leg; watching Miles slaughter a healthy, terrified animal just to make a point had hammered in how deeply the magic had warped him. Phoenix had talked to people in the castle after moving to Angelos, and although no one would ever call their prince affectionate, everyone thought him just. The kennel master said that he had a softness for the palace dogs, though even Phoenix's most dreamy-eyed assessments found it impossible to picture his prince ruffling a puppy's fur. That _thing_ at the gatehouse had been von Karma, not the prince.

After their confrontation with the horse, Miles never talked to him and Phoenix found it impossible to get close again. The prince was like a ghost in the castle. In those rare times that Phoenix caught sight of him, a guard would form out of ice and block Phoenix's path. Even from a distance, it was clear that the man's coloring had faded further as time went on. His hair was nearly white, his skin close to crystalline. It was as much of a countdown as the gemstone heart.

That was where Phoenix was now, in the courtyard next to the silver pedestal. The heart was nearly diamond, with only a walnut-sized ruby lump at its center. It shrank further as Phoenix watched.

_I don't know what to do._

"I see you cannot find adequate words to communicate the depths of your failure," Manfred said with a smirk.

Phoenix still said nothing.

"Will you kill yourself after your inevitable defeat, or before, to avoid watching the moment of his death?" Manfred folded his arms and studied the rotating gemstone with satisfaction. "It will be death, you understand. Everything about him will be lost forever. The body will still be here, walking around for as long as I care to keep it, but it will be as dead as any skeleton."

_I wonder if I could kill Miles before that happens,_ Phoenix thought grimly, though his mind danced away from the notion as soon as he'd raised it. Still... hadn't he thought that Gregory's death was a kindness in comparison? Maybe this wasn't ever going to be a happy ending. _How would I do it, though? It'd need to be a quick kill and his heart is gone. Could I take off his head?_ The analysis sickened him, and so he looked for anything else to anchor his attention.

That was hard. The most notable sight was the destroyed gatehouse, and that memory left him just as sick as this potential new mercy killing. The rest of the castle was grim, bleak, and unsettling to look at, and his gaze slid off the icy walls accordingly. Even the stars were fading, and that oddity made him want to look away from them, too. At first he'd thought there were infinitely more stars in the northern skies, countless diamonds scattered along bands of indigo and purple, but the number ebbed and flowed. The brilliance overhead had changed to only twice as many stars as he remembered from his hometown back in the green southern meadows.

"To be truly great," Manfred explained when he saw Phoenix staring upward, "one must rip out their feelings. The most perfect of my kind take that weakness within us and send it away. I assume some apprentice from another land has attempted to set himself on the same path as me. Eventually, the stars all come north, but some don't last long." He gestured overhead. "I've been in the sky for a century."

"You're wrong."

Manfred's smile was dangerous. "Do tell me, hero: how am I _wrong?_"

"First: you don't become stronger by ripping out your feelings." Phoenix trailed his hand along his sword, but Manfred didn't seem threatened by the weapon. "Carbon's an imperfection, but without it, iron's too brittle. Mix the two, and steel's stronger."

"A simple comparison, by a simple grunt on the battlefield." With a flick of his wrist, von Karma sent an icy blast across Phoenix's face, who'd resolved not to react but couldn't help but shiver. "Sorcerers do not operate within your limits."

"Second," Phoenix continued after gritting his teeth, "you still feel things."

After another blast, von Karma tilted his head. "Do tell me how I don't know my own self. I anticipate your wisdom."

"When everyone laughed at you, you got angry." Manfred twitched and Phoenix knew he was on to something. "You're not in control of your emotions at all. You've ripped out everything good inside yourself, but there's still room for feelings and you've let awful ones fill you up instead. There's absolutely no sense of balance, or—" Another blast buffeted him and Phoenix staggered back.

"I was not _angry_," von Karma said with obvious irritation. "I was simply reinforcing my perfection. As the premiere ice mage in the world, it would not do to have people question—"

"You were angry," Phoenix repeated emphatically, "and humiliated. At your _failure._ And you haven't gotten rid of Miles' feelings, either. He still loves his father. He misses him. He's hurting and if he ever learned the truth, his anger would burn so hot that the block of ice inside of him wouldn't just melt, it'd turn to steam." Was this the right thing to do? Phoenix didn't know, but that ruby looked closer to a chestnut, now, and it was time to press the sorcerer hard and see what weak spots emerged.

"He will never learn," Manfred said after a long beat. "Changing a heart is a master's work; muddling memories is child's play. He barely remembers having his heart ripped out on the dungeon altar. He thinks that what he _does_ remember happened in his chambers in Angelos when magic was being forced into him. If he felt again, the pain of killing his own father would come back to him before any other emotions, Phoenix Wright. He wouldn't want to feel." His thin smile was more frightening than the show he'd put on back in Angelos' royal hall. "In fact, let me show you. Prince!" His voice bellowed, and soon Miles stepped out of the front doors. "I understand that this pathetic excuse for a guard has introduced uncertainty into you."

Miles looked between them. His eyebrows dipped. "You... you might say that, sir," he said after a long beat.

Almost lazily, von Karma raised his hand and an ice spear shot out of it. It arced across the courtyard and speared Miles through the chest. Unlike his father, he didn't bleed. It had struck him through the ice patch and so he shuddered at the impact but didn't fall. "You need to freeze solid again, boy," von Karma said and gestured at the spear. Frost tendrils snaked out of it across Miles' jacket, and he shook as the magic worked. "You won't feel any emotions, just like before. You'll stop hurting even though _this_ man tried to put all that pain into you."

Phoenix gritted his teeth, but heartbreak was worse than his anger. The flickers of humanity in Miles' eyes were fading. When the ice spear crumbled to the ground, he looked as blank a slate as he had when Phoenix first woke up. "Thank you, sir," Miles said in a monotone. "I am no longer uncertain of my path."

"You always did need to be corrected," Manfred sneered. "If your worthless father had allowed me to chastise you as much as you needed as a child, perhaps I would not be doing this now to his worthless son." He tilted his head and studied Miles. "Does it anger you to hear me label you worthless?"

"No, sir. All I care about is restoring order and meting out punishment, by force if need be."

"Good," von Karma chuckled. "Go to your chambers, collect the jacket, and return here to await the final change. I plan to move quickly." After a second of hesitation, Miles inclined his head and left them. For a man who liked to brag that he'd ripped out his own emotions, von Karma certainly had mastered a gloating smile. Phoenix wondered for one brief instant if he could lop the man's head off before he could react, and just as quickly knew that he couldn't. Still, the act of trying would be very, very satisfying. "That jacket I told him to get?" von Karma asked. He flicked the intricate silver overlay on his own apparel. "It has far more than this. Between the amount of silver and the ancient runes they form, he will be the greatest weapon this world has ever seen. And that weapon will belong to me. Angelos will scream to see their prince return."

"That's... no." This _couldn't_ be the end. "All I need is one piece of proof to show him that you ripped out his heart here, not there. Then he'll know that you killed the king, that he can't trust you, and so it's all right to feel things—"

"Proof?" Manfred's laughter was like twisting metal. "And when would you get this proof? Look at how little time he has left!"

Phoenix followed his bony finger toward the pedestal and swallowed at the sight of the nearly-clear heart. The man was right; he had no time. _I don't know what to do._

The ruby shrank to the size of his thumbnail.

_I don't know what to do._

"Watch," Manfred whispered against Phoenix's ear. "Watch your failure. Watch death, boy."

The words were barely out when ice the size of Phoenix's forearm erupted from Manfred's chest. Phoenix yelped and instinctively jumped back from whatever magic von Karma had called, then blinked when he saw the sorcerer's startled expression. _That's... that's not his spell._ Confused, he looked around the courtyard, sword raised. His knees nearly buckled when he turned toward the front door.

Miles was standing in his silver-worked jacket, one hand extended. A second ice spear ripped out of his palm, stabbed the air, and impaled von Karma through his gut. The man staggered, mouth open, and Miles began walking deliberately toward him with ice crystals swirling between his bare fingers. "With your own mouth, Manfred von Karma, you have proclaimed that you killed my father, King Gregory of Angelos, and abducted the prince-heir of the kingdom."

Manfred's fist closed around the spear in his gut. He wasn't bleeding, Phoenix noticed through his daze; at least, he wasn't bleeding anything red. Some silvery substance like mercury oozed out from the wound. "I did no such thing. That is a filthy lie that this pathetic guard has tried to feed you. Stand down, and I will not punish you _too_ much, whelp—"

Ice crept up his ankles. He gestured and it scattered, but returned just as quickly. A look of very slight concern entered Manfred's eyes. Phoenix began to inch away, but Miles caught him in similar icy cuffs before he could get very far.

"The 'pathetic guard' testified as to a lack of evidence in the royal chamber." Miles shot out another spear. Not only did von Karma fail to block it, but it pierced his shoulder through. Manfred gasped and the noise sounded very close to a scream. "I remembered differently and did not trust his statement, but with your own words just now you admit to having manipulated my memories. Clearly, you did not recall my desire to view my heart nor recognize my proximity to the front entrance. You admitted that the magic entered me here, not in Angelos. There is no way for me to be my father's killer."

Teeth gritted, von Karma shot out a half-dozen ice spears toward Miles. They crumbled in mid-air and drifted away as snowflakes, and his mild concern was replaced by open fear. "Take off that jacket," he said tightly. "I command it!"

_The jacket,_ Phoenix thought, barely daring to breathe. He could feel the cuffs at his ankles dissolving into snow; apparently, the testimony was all that was needed from him. Now, the confrontation only involved the two of them. Had all of those silver runes truly made Miles' novice powers stronger than the High Mage's?

"All that remains," Miles continued as if he hadn't spoken, "is to convict those who would dare to break the kingdom's law."

"I will destroy you, you worthless dog!" Manfred said as the ice crept past his waist. "I'll end you like I ended your father!" His hands traced complicated shapes through the air too quickly for Phoenix to follow, and for a few awful seconds it looked like expertise might overcome raw power. Ice struck Miles like spinning sawblades, and unlike the High Mage, his clothes were soon stained with red where the cuts had landed. He didn't react, but there was so much blood and the blows kept coming.

"You have no right to that jacket, dog, not until you are _mine_ for all eternity, and I—" Manfred shuddered as a fresh blow erupted from his chest, and looked slowly down at the length of steel jutting from between his ribs. Phoenix twisted his sword, not caring as the cold made it shatter, and returned a fierce grin as Manfred stared in hatred at him.

That distraction was all Miles needed to complete von Karma's icy prison, past his mouth and nose and skull. "For the crime of regicide and abducting the heir," he said with no satisfaction or anger, "Manfred von Karma, you are hereby sentenced to death." His bloody hands sliced the air, and with a great shuddering noise like when Larry had broken through the ice, the prison tore apart and shattered von Karma with it. He swirled into snowflakes like Phoenix's mount had, but these flakes were not left to float idly toward the sky. With one great heave of power, Miles extended both hands and the snow arced through the sky like a shooting comet.

The snow disappeared over the southern horizon. At that speed, at that height, it would pass over the mountains within seconds. _And then the summer sun will do its work,_ Phoenix thought, almost too stunned to feel joy. He breathed in, using the cold shock of air to clear his head, and rushed toward the prince. "Miles! You did it!"

The prince said nothing. He didn't even look satisfied, and he made no move to staunch the flows of blood staining his clothes.

"You... you did it," Phoenix repeated uncertainly. He glanced over his shoulder at the heart and felt his knees nearly give out. There was only as much ruby as the nail on his index finger, if that. "Take your heart. Take it back, you have to fix it now, there's no time left!"

Miles looked dispassionately at his heart.

"No," Phoenix whispered, sick, and thought back to that icy spear re-freezing the prince's chest. "No! I know you don't want to feel again, but if you don't get your heart back, von Karma is still going to win! You have to—"

"I will not be under his control as a weapon, and I have no wish to return to the pain of my father's death," Miles said in that same inhuman monotone. "No matter who caused it. Let it change."

In horror, Phoenix looked between the man ready to fall from the cliff and the rope he refused to grab. "You have to. We're so close. Prince Miles, _please!"_

Blood dripped on ice as the ruby shrank. Miles let it flow as he watched his death approach.

_I don't know what to do_, Phoenix thought, numb. As the blood landed, it froze as Gregory's had. _I don't know what to do._


	8. Chapter 8

"Please," Phoenix whispered. "You didn't just stand by and watch me die. I am _not_ going to watch you."

Miles remained silent. Even his eyelashes were white, now, and his face had turned nearly the color of fresh snow. The extent of the change was terrifying and made his blood look all the worse in contrast.

"Your kingdom needs you," Phoenix tried desperately. If the man cared about nothing but logic in this state, maybe he would respond to a reminder of the kingdom's laws. "You're the king, now, and—"

"The succession is clear. Mia Fey is next in line for the throne and has eyes for Conde Armando. Although he is not a major noble in his kingdom, their union would nevertheless improve trading ties." Miles took a step toward his heart. His wounds had stopped bleeding; they'd frozen solid, as hard as any scab. "I am not needed."

"I need you," Phoenix said, almost too softly to hear. "Please."

"I would give you some token of mine," Miles said without looking, "so that you might return with it to the castle and let them know that you did your duty. Unfortunately, I do not have any of my own belongings. I must only wish you the best."

_"Please."_

Miles turned and met his eyes, finally, but his expression was as flat as a frozen lake. "You have not failed me, Guard Wright. You have performed to your utmost capacity and have earned my respect. Thank you for your assistance with von Karma." He looked back at his heart, now colored only by a sliver of red within the sparkling diamond. "You are dismissed."

"No," Phoenix gasped, staggering. "No!" _It can't end. Not like this. Not so close._ "No," he said a final time, with fierce determination bleeding into sudden calm. He hadn't performed to his utmost capacity. Not yet.

His lips met the prince's again, painfully hard. This time, it would work. He clasped those smooth cheeks again and felt tears leak from below his closed eyelids. After one last beat to savor the moment, Phoenix let the remainder of Maya's spell flow into Miles' body. Before that release he'd felt cold in the northern air, but he hadn't known how much heat still lingered inside him. Without it, he'd opened the door of a snug cabin and walked out into a blizzard.

He lasted only a few seconds longer before he collapsed to the ice blocks below and, unable to think of anything but the pain, began to freeze. The cold hurt worse than hunger, worse than cuts taken during training. It was all-consuming, fiercely greedy, and burrowed into him further by the second. The scab on his cheek where his skin had torn felt drumskin-tight. Soon all of his skin was turning stiff like tanned leather, and needles pierced every inch of exposed flesh. Knowing he had little time left, and with just enough rational thought remaining to him, Phoenix turned his face up to watch the effects.

He could only hope his death wasn't for nothing.

Miles staggered as he had before, but this was far more intense than his reaction in the bedroom. He sank to his knees, scrabbling at his jacket like he was trying to tear it away, or perhaps the flesh below. Mouth open in a silent scream, he curled in on himself. Tears streamed freely down his cheeks and hit the ground as drops of diamond.

Diamond. "The h-heart," Phoenix gasped, shuddering. "G-get y-your—" The rest of the words wouldn't come. He'd taken a deep breath to push out his plea, and the shock of the cold air in his lungs felt like he was freezing solid from the inside.

Miles looked up, still weeping over the abruptly remembered pain of his father's murder, but his eyes weren't reddened from the effort. They were pure white from lid to lid. "Wright," he said in a tiny, surprised voice, like he'd forgotten Phoenix was there.

"H-h-heart," Phoenix managed. It would be the last word he ever said. He could feel his body locking up, and worse, the return of warmth inside him. The captain had warned him that this was how freezing to death would feel, back before he set out on his first winter campaign. At least he wouldn't die still feeling cold, even as his fingers turned black and his eyes froze in his skull. He hated the cold.

Miles gawked at him for another long second, then hurriedly sketched patterns in the air with his still-bare hands. _He's getting the heart,_ Phoenix thought with a warm lassitude as he felt himself slip away. His body didn't feel cold at all, now. _I did it. I did it. Protect the prince._ He smiled as he let himself slip under. _Protect the king._

"Are you all right?" Miles asked, pulling him to his feet. Phoenix was shocked to feel his body respond as smoothly as it ever had under Maya's spell.

Startled, he looked down at himself. This didn't appear to be some sort of hallucination as he walked away into the light; he was really alive and really felt better. "I'm fine," he said with confusion, patting himself down, and looked back at Miles. The sight of the man's white eyes freezing into solid ice made his chest lurch, and he shoved Miles toward the pedestal with no concern for the social ranks between them. "Heart!"

Nodding, Miles reached up and clasped his own gemstone heart firmly in his pure white hand. There was only a speck of ruby left, and although Phoenix felt sick at how close they'd come, there was still time to get that heart back inside to save his prince and king. "I moved the cold away from you," Miles explained as he studied the heart, then began to work at the buttons of his elaborate silver-trimmed jacket. Again with no concern for social impropriety, Phoenix attempted to help him undress, though his glove-clad hands offered more enthusiasm than assistance. "I could at least do that much for a man who worked so hard to save me."

"Thank you, Your Grace," Phoenix said in a tumble, "I appreciate it, you can tell me later. Hurry!"

Miles unfastened another button, but his fingers slowed as he worked. To Phoenix's horror, after that next button, they stopped entirely. When Pheonix tried to tackle the next fastening himself, Miles caught his hand. "Wait," Miles said as softly as a snowfall.

_"Hurry!"_ Phoenix begged.

White lips curved in a gentle smile. "I can feel ice inside me forever, Phoenix Wright. I could last up here even with any magic gone." He took a deep breath; no steam emerged when he exhaled. "But to get my heart back and break von Karma's spell... I'm sure it would give that power up."

"It doesn't matter, no one _cares_ if you have magic, but you have to hurry!"

"You care." Miles moved to touch Phoenix's cheek gently, but stopped before his now icy hand could tear away more skin. Phoenix shuddered at that realization of why fingers had stayed clear of his flesh, then tried to push the hand holding the heart into Miles Edgeworth's body like the remaining clothes weren't in the way. Miles continued, ignoring Phoenix's desperation, "You care because, without me holding off the cold... you'll die."

"No," Phoenix gasped as his prince's words sunk in. "No, you are not making that trade. I came here to save you! Don't... don't make me watch. Don't make me watch you... _please._"

"You won't have to watch," Miles agreed, and Phoenix moaned.

"No, that's not what I meant. _Please._ No." If only he could, Phoenix would rip Miles' magic away from him so that he'd freeze to death right then and there, and Miles would have no choice but to put his heart back in his chest. But he couldn't. There was nothing to set free like with Maya's spell, no clasp to release on a cloak. "This isn't how this is supposed to end."

"You did save me," Miles said, just before he returned Phoenix's kiss. It was so gentle and magic kept his lips merely chilly. Phoenix let out a broken sob when they parted. "Thank you for keeping me from being his weapon. To kill the people who trusted me to defend them would have been the cruelest fate of all. But this story he's woven has demanded a death at the end and..." With one deliberate motion, Miles re-fastened a button on his jacket. "I choose mine."

"No!" Phoenix shouted, but sudden wind pushed him back.

"I no longer belong there," Miles said, and let his diamond heart drop to the ground at his feet. It rolled away. "And I don't want to sit in the throne that my father should hold. I don't want to live every day thinking about his death. Live, Phoenix," he said, and swept his hand through the air. "The spell needs to be powered, but I've tied it off."

Phoenix could feel the spell tighten as securely as if it had been knotted. Ice erupted under him and he was startled to find himself sitting atop a new mount, clear and strong and tireless. _"No!"_ he shouted as silvery reins bound him in place. The horse turned, angling them toward the gates. Its hooves rang like bells as it walked. Each step was faster than the last. "Please, stop!"

"Enjoy summer," Miles said. His voice grew distant, and Phoenix could no longer angle himself to see his prince. "Promise me that."

Before Phoenix could answer, his horse set into a run. They tore down the slope faster than any living mount could manage. Snow streamed behind him, and it was difficult to breathe as the wind whipped past. He wasn't freezing, but even as he struggled to free himself, he felt as dead inside as the ice around him.

They were already at the foot of the mountain when the diamond heart broke open.

Phoenix's horse slowed to a walk. He was able to free himself from the reins and did so desperately, but it was too late. A cascade of starlight was pouring from the palace into the night sky above. The stragglers from Miles' heart wound their way slowly upward, dancing and swaying like embers in a fire, then locked themselves into place in the heavens. Their light was as cold as the wind.

Not hesitating for an instant, Phoenix turned his horse back north and kicked it into a gallop. Prince Miles' last wish might have been for him to enjoy summer, but it was a promise he couldn't keep. Summer was a season of life and there was nothing left alive inside of him. Not after this. _No,_ he pleaded, hoping that he'd somehow see anything else back in that courtyard. Anything but what he knew was waiting.

His hope was useless. At the far end of the courtyard, beyond the line of snowflake runes, stood Miles Edgeworth as white as snow and as still as ice. The bloodstains had vanished and he was the same crystalline clarity from hair to motionless feet. He didn't look at Phoenix when he approached; he didn't look at anything. He was a breathing statue, but not a living one. Everything inside of him had shattered and flown to the sky above.

Phoenix slid off his horse and landed heavily on the courtyard's blocks. He stared up at the dead prince, numb and broken.

Above him, a star went out.


	9. Chapter 9

The only sound was Phoenix's heartbeat in his ears. He was the sole life for hours in any direction. Even the wind outside of the palace walls had died. His icy mount had gone still like no living horse could manage, as lifeless as the man who'd made it.

"It didn't work," Phoenix whispered, but the words still sounded painfully loud in the quiet around him. The statue who'd once been Miles stared at the gates, unseeing and unblinking. "It didn't work."

Forcing himself to his feet, he approached Miles and stroked his cheek lightly with his glove-clad hand. Miles gave no response, offered no recognition that he'd been touched. Sick with his failure, Phoenix slid his hand down the prince's arm until their fingers were intertwined, then gave one gentle tug toward him. Though Miles stepped obediently forward, and again when Phoenix backed up, he stopped after that as surely as if a wall were in front of him. Knowing what he'd see, Phoenix looked down and saw the decorative line of snowflakes under their feet in the courtyard bricks.

Manfred's voice sighed across his memory. _Without my permission, that body can never cross the snowflake symbols in the courtyard, even if it stays in this palace for a thousand years. Ten thousand. _

Phoenix sank to the ground, defeated.

He was the hero who'd set off on a desperate quest. He'd faced enormous danger and saved the prince from deadly peril with love, a force greater than any their foe could wield.

But the prince still wound up dead.

Hugging his knees to his chest, Phoenix stared up at the writhing sky and watched the stars go out.

"Manfred told me about how he ripped out his feelings," he said to the statue. "It's strange to think that he must have once had something good inside of him. A soul. But it's not hard to picture yours. I watched you, you know. Not like I was your guard, but like your..." Phoenix's voice wavered. "I was stupid. You were going to be king. You would never have a peasant beside you. I knew that, but I still watched."

And now he was _watching_ his prince's soul slowly extinguish itself in the night sky. There was a strange, cold light to the soul stars. The constellations he knew from back home had warmer lights like candles; the new stars above him here gleamed like moonlight on snow. One particularly brilliant sapphire star flashed bright, then went dark.

_Love for his people. For justice. Gone._

"I don't know how you did it," Phoenix said quietly. "Always living your life knowing that it wasn't your own." The prince of the kingdom had never worried about going hungry, but after their new life in their new house, Phoenix Wright had been able to choose between life as a farmer or guard or weaver or cooper or whatever else he might want in the world. In Angelos, Miles had attended every state function even when he was ill or injured, and dutifully prepared to marry someone to give the land its next heir. And when he was here... tears beaded anew. "I don't know how you go through this hell and then think of anyone else."

His chest heaved with a deeper sob. The few tears he'd let leak out before felt like nothing, now. It was over, _everything_ was over, and these tears came so hard that his vision blurred. With the cold still held away from his body, they dripped off his chin and splattered against the ice below. "I can't go back."

Another particularly bright star died. _Love for his father. Gone._

"I can't ever leave here. Like you." After hiccuping, Phoenix took a deep breath and pressed the heels of his palms against his wet eyes. "I know my body can walk out any time that I want, but my heart's always going to be trapped here in this courtyard. Thinking about how you're imprisoned and your soul got sent somewhere else. Thinking about how I was supposed to save you. How you weren't supposed to die." He opened his eyes, blinking hard, and tried to focus past the aftereffects of pressing too hard. Light danced everywhere, but those eyespots faded as surely as the stars.

"This wasn't how it was supposed to end," Phoenix said, and wiped his eyes again. "This wasn't how..." What use were more words? His tongue stilled and he looked up at the terrible northern sky as spots still danced in his vision. It took them longer to fade, this time. For a long time Phoenix stared up at nothing, only distantly able to wonder how long it would take him to die if he never moved from that spot. Within the castle he wouldn't starve, and within the spell's embrace he didn't feel cold. Maybe his body would go on with its mockery of life for as long as the prince's. Maybe ten thousand years from now they'd both still be there, motionless and hollow inside.

"You were right," Phoenix said softly. "I'm in love with you. And how stupid does that sound now?"

Another star went out.

_What cruel timing,_ Phoenix thought, aching, as he propped his chin on his knees and studied the sky. _You'd almost think that one was for me._

He was so focused on that empty spot overhead that he almost didn't notice a different star falling back to earth.

By the third, he sat up again.

By the fifth, he stood.

"What?" Phoenix asked, slowly turning. The dim, grey light had vanished and the night overhead looked more natural than it had since he'd first set foot in the castle. Points of gleaming starlight fell, one by one but soon as a diamond waterfall. Light spun around Phoenix like he was the eye of a hurricane. Awed at whatever was happening, Phoenix reached out a hesitant hand and brushed against a single star. Bone-deep fear struck him and he jerked back, but another star hit him before he could pull entirely free of the storm. That one brought reckless joy with it. As the storm's eye began to wander across the courtyard, more of the swirling diamonds impacted him. Uncertainty. Hope. Despair. Rage. Devotion. Love.

Crying out, he flattened himself against the ground and tried to limit the impacts. It was too much, too fast. Whatever was happening was beautiful but utterly terrifying. Down there on the blocks, frantic to escape the rogue starlight, he almost missed the long, pained gasp above him.

Phoenix's head jerked up and his eyes widened. The statue that had once been Miles Edgeworth was dropping to its knees, clutching its chest as a star hit the pure white crystal and burrowed inside it. "You're..." He leapt to his feet and pushed through the swirling stars, gritting his teeth against the impacts of pain and joy and fear and loss. "Miles!"

Miles cried out and tore at his chest like he had in his bedroom, like he could somehow dig emotions out of himself. He was still pure white, even lacking pupils in his eyes, but Phoenix recognized his voice and face again. With fierce hope bursting in his heart, he clutched the prince close and held him as he jerked in pain. "Please, please, _please_," Phoenix gritted out as other stars swirled around Miles but rebounded off.

"Father," Miles whispered, sounding so young, and Phoenix knew what had happened. Manfred had told him as much. Agony was such an overwhelming emotion that it would return to Miles first, and he wouldn't want anything else if he couldn't fight through it. That first star that had dug its way inside had been filled with the pain of his father's murder and so it was the only thing he could feel in the world. "Stop, stop, I don't want this any more, _stop_, I made a mistake—"

Another star rebounded and began to weave a dizzy path back toward the sky. Phoenix stared at it in a panic, then caught the prince's head in his hands as he shook it blindly. "No. Let it in, whatever that is, let it in! There's more than just pain. I promise, please!"

Miles let out a ragged cry.

_Do it, Nick_ he heard again in Larry's voice, and Phoenix lunged forward to kiss Miles. He had no spell to offer this time, only love. He pressed against the hard body, the crystalline mouth, and tried to remember everything good and living and warm in the world. _Let it in. Please, we're so close, let it in._

For a seeming eternity Miles only trembled in his arms, still fighting the emotions swirling around him. That shaking slowed, then stopped. Stars stopped as well, and for few long breaths they were motionless inside of cloud of diamond starlight under a dancing sky. Slowly, like a breeze picking up, the stars set back into motion. As they did, Miles kissed back.

Phoenix clung desperately to the man as he felt warmth return to his mouth. He opened his eyes as their kiss continued. Warm raincloud grey stared back at him. He couldn't keep kissing any more, as much as he wanted to. He needed to breathe, laugh, and sweep the now-living prince into the fiercest embrace of his life. "What," Phoenix demanded when his dizziness passed, "just happened?"

Miles, trembling, studied his hand. He was still paler than he'd been back in Angelos, and his hair might never be brown again, but he was alive. "I heard... something. And I wanted my feelings back." He looked up at the sky and, dizzy, nearly fell to the courtyard below. "I remember being up there and it was—" He staggered again and Phoenix supported him, and Miles accepted the help gladly. "It was so cold and still. Everything made perfect sense. I didn't need to feel any more, but... but I wanted to, even with everything that would come along with it." His startled grey eyes looked away from the sky and met Phoenix's. "It was you, wasn't it?"

"Me?"

"You said that you love me."

Phoenix blushed. It was the first heat he'd felt since Maya cast her spell. "You knew that."

"I'd never heard you say it, though." Miles laughed breathily, then studied his hands instead of Phoenix's face. Phoenix couldn't blame him; if he'd just broken out of an eternal ice prison formed by the world's most powerful mage, he would want to see that his fingernails were fingernails again, too.

Eternal. Strongest mage. "How?" Phoenix ventured asking. "How were you even able to _want_ your feelings back?"

Miles looked up at the sky. "Manfred thought that he knew the only way to strength. He thought that anyone would get stronger if they ripped out any _weak_ emotions inside of them, and once you were so strong, you'd never change back." He let out another breath and it steamed in the cold. "He couldn't even conceive of the idea that someone would reject the path he'd chosen, and so he called it impossible."

"That's amazing," Phoenix said softly, kissed his prince again, and watched their breath mingle in the winter air. After that long pause, he asked, "So... are we about to freeze to death?"

An initial flash of concern on Miles' face soon turned into a sly, confident smile. "I didn't _break_ his spell, did I? It played out, just as he'd intended to make me into his weapon... but then I didn't let him." He flicked the silver trim on his jacket, nodded once, and gestured at the courtyard. A second horse grew from the ice and Miles looked at Phoenix with pride. "No. We're not about to freeze to death. Let's..." A long breath shuddered out of him. "Let's go home."

They stood, and together, took a step forward.

Miles rebounded like he'd hit a wall.

Phoenix's vision jerked to the line of snowflakes like they were poisonous snakes clustered at their feet. "No," he said dumbly and felt his knees weaken. Not now. Not this.

"No," Miles said firmly. Glaring up at the sky, he said with all the confidence of his royal birth, "Manfred von Karma, you longer have any power over me. I reject your control, I reject your beliefs, and I reject the entitlement you feel to guide my life. You are _gone_, and I am no longer under your authority." His hand trailed an intricate line of silver on his jacket, but came to rest over his heart. "And even if you managed a second attempt, you would not overpower me again."

A dozen ice-cold stars died in unison, and with one long stride, Miles stepped over the line of snowflakes. "Now," he breathed with clear relief, and Phoenix realized that he hadn't been sure whether he could truly break free of von Karma's last grasp, "let's really go home."

After mounting his horse, Phoenix looked up at the darker sky again. "It was von Karma," he said, very nearly smacking his forehead. At Miles' curious expression, he explained, "I was watching stars go out and I thought your soul was falling apart above me. It was him. He'd kept himself up there for a century and we killed him, so those stars could finally fall."

"A century up there," Miles repeated quietly, and shivered. How cold had it been up there in the sky? How lonely? "He tortured me, but that man managed to make his own prison, as well." With a long, searching survey, he took in the landscape beyond the spiked gates: grey ice, jagged rocks, thin and hesitant snowdrifts. "I never want to see this place again," he said to himself, then turned to Phoenix. "Can you ride well?"

"Pretty well," Phoenix said, and felt wild joy pour through him as they angled their mounts toward the steep road leading to the flatlands. _We're going home. I did it. We're going... really fast._ Wind whipped him again, but this time he wanted to laugh even as he could barely breathe. They crossed the hellish terrain at impossible speeds, never slipping no matter how thick the ice, and slowed to a walk when the first white-capped tree greeted them.

A fox bounded after a rabbit and disappeared below the brush. Birdsong drew their attention upward to where crimson darted from branch to branch. With a flutter of wings, the cardinal descended onto a holly branch and plucked a berry for its meal.

"Red," Miles said as he stared at the bird until it flew away. "I remember that, now."

Emboldened by the sight of life, Phoenix leaned over and kissed him. His heart surged when the kiss was returned. Some part of him had known, just _known_ that he was only the soldier on the front lines, whose role would end as soon as the battle for the prince's life did. That dark part of him had reminded Phoenix that he was only a peasant, not a prince, and that this wasn't the happy ending that would tie off the tale. Well, that part could just stay quiet, because _his prince_ had just kissed back. "There are," Phoenix said, and kissed him again. "So many colors." Again. "To remember."

Miles smiled. "I trust that you will help to remind me." That smile wasn't as wide as he'd given back in the courtyard, but Phoenix recalled that he'd never seen the prince give a truly broad smile even in Angelos. He was forever controlled and in command of himself. Phoenix had never suspected the depths of the man's emotions; if that diamond hurricane hadn't struck him and left him overwhelmed, he still wouldn't believe it.

Trumpets sounded as Phoenix opened his mouth to reply. Startled, both men turned toward the bold noises and saw a military regiment cresting a hill. At its head were Maya and Mia Fey, and slightly behind them, Larry with his broken leg in a splint. The sight of Miles and Phoenix rippled through the regiment from its head, and by the time Mia was galloping across the snow toward them, the soldiers near the back of the line were cheering.

"Prince!" she said as she reined her horse to a stop. "Are you all right? I'm..." She smiled wryly. "I'm here to rescue you."

Though Phoenix tried to pull back from her notice, Miles caught his arm and pulled him up equal. "Thanks to Guard Wright, Manfred von Karma is dead and I was able to escape his captivity." As Mia studied his silvery hair with a frown, he added, "With only minor side effects." His hand tightened on Phoenix's arm. "I am deeply indebted to this man, Mia."

Mia raised an eyebrow knowingly, but her expression soon fell. "Your Grace... I hate to be the one to deliver this news to you, but... your father the king..."

"Is dead." Miles' joy faded. "Yes. I know. I had been able to think on other things, but I... I know." His face walled off as surely as if he were that statue again, and Phoenix's heart ached for the role he had to play for his people. "I should go show myself to the troops and let them know their efforts were not in vain. As well, I'm sure that they have some lingering concerns over von Karma's control of me, and my appearance and mount will heighten it. I must assuage those fears." His ice steed began to walk toward the soldiers, but he took one long second to trail his hand down Phoenix's arm before he left.

"Thank you," Mia said as they watched Miles walk toward the regiment and describe what had happened with no more emotion than he would use to relate a new trading agreement. "We didn't exactly get along when we first met, but we've both settled into the idea of what the kingdom needs from us, and..." Her smile went lopsided. "I'm actually thrilled to see my closed-off, pompous future husband again."

Startled, Phoenix stared at her with huge, wounded eyes. _No. No! I rescued him, I put those pieces back together, I... I..._

"Phoenix, was it?" Mia asked. She leaned in close. "My _future husband_ and I are going to use a spell exactly _once_ to give the kingdom the legitimate heirs it requires, and then he is going to look the other way as I take a consort who is driven mad by the sight of me. Who will live in the palace, and play with our children, and share my life."

Hope and fear and confusion mingled inside Phoenix. "Should... should you be telling me this, Mage Fey?"

"From the way he looked at you just now? Like he's never looked at me?" Mia pulled him close and had Phoenix walk beside her, back toward the regiment. "Oh, you'd better learn the truth of this arrangement sooner rather than later. It's going to be messy and complicated, with a lot of lives in that castle. And everyone's going to ignore the _rules_ together and be happy."

After the still perfection of von Karma's home, Phoenix could do with some messy, crowded lives. And happiness. "He actually _can_ be happy, you know," Phoenix found himself saying as they watched the prince dispassionately relate the details of von Karma's defeat. "He tries to be so serious and dedicated, but..."

"Oh, I know," Mia said airily, then glanced at Phoenix again with greater consideration. "But you know that even more, don't you? So, Guard Phoenix Wright, do you have any idea how to be a king's consort? Which trading partners we care the most about? Which forks to use at a state dinner?"

Mostly, he'd been thinking that he really wanted to kiss Miles again. "Not the slightest idea."

"I thought so. Sounds like you could use a guide." Mia patted him on the shoulder and steered them toward where Miles was informing the captain of the guard that no, he would _not_ be arresting his two former troops for desertion. "Come on," Mia whispered into Phoenix's ear. "Let's turn you into the man he ignores me for."

Though it was hard not to ride up and rejoin Miles' side that instant, official debriefing be damned, Phoenix just managed to stay back with Mia. "You're going to be a much different High Mage than von Karma."

"My sister is going to be _queen_," Maya said, joining them and pulling Phoenix into an awkward but fierce mounted hug, "and so apparently it's going to be _my_ job to be High Mage."

Maya as High Mage? Well, all those lives inside Angelos' castle certainly would be messy. "Thank you, Maya," Phoenix said, and hugged her again, so tightly that she let out a tiny squeak. "I couldn't have done it without you."

"Really?"

"Your spell kept me alive and it helped save him. At least until I started freezing to death."

"Oh." She frowned slightly. "Good?"

"Nick!" Larry said and rode up; still on Buttercup, Phoenix saw. "You did it! Sorry that I was kind of useless," he added, rubbing his head sheepishly.

"You weren't useless, Larry," Phoenix said as Maya inspected his palm where she'd first cast that heat spell. "Picturing you actually helped me to figure out what I needed to do to save the day."

"Really?" Larry considered that, then leaned in close and whispered, "Then to pay me back, do you think you could set me up with Maya?" As Phoenix rolled his eyes, too happy to be surrounded by friends again to be _too_ annoyed with Larry, Larry added, "Or get me a free room in the castle, since I'm out of the guards? Either's good!"

Before Phoenix could respond, a trumpet blared and the regiment formed up. Miles returned to Phoenix's side, his face still the mask of the prince they'd rescued and the king who would soon be crowned. But his hand slipped down and held Phoenix's, and as it squeezed tight, Phoenix shared a tiny, secret smile with him. Things might be _perfect_ on the surface, whether it was a royal marriage or flawless ice statue, but all those messy lives and emotions below were so much better. So much stronger.

Six months later, the capital was frozen again.

"Got you!" Maya shrieked in delight as she pelted her sister with a snowball.

In a huff, Mia dusted herself off and tilted up her chin. "You just attacked the queen. You're playing a dangerous game, Maya."

"You're not the queen yet," Maya said and smacked her with another snowball. She had good aim, and so Mia yelped and hurriedly followed Phoenix inside the Great Hall. He chuckled; she glared.

"So," Phoenix said with consideration as he looked past the lead crystal windows to the field of snow outside, and then back in to the Great Hall. Fires blazed merrily in huge fireplaces and thick green evergreen boughs lined the walls. Red and gold bows held them in place, and the same colors burned as a thousand candles along the tables. Color was everywhere. "My first state dinner. Is it going to be all right for me to sit up at that head table?"

"I'm not sure," Mia admitted. "But I know the king wouldn't have it any other way. And he..." With a sigh, Mia saw Miles near the end of the Great Hall, gesturing toward the ceiling. "Would you stop that?" she loudly asked as they walked to join him.

After kissing Phoenix in greeting, Miles gave her a bland smile and gestured toward the roof again. An enormous snowflake formed below where a red velvet bow tied the evergreen, then sparkled as it turned slowly in the firelight. Down the line of boughs, a dozen more flakes matched it already. "Why? It is a midwinter feast."

"And after the feast, they will melt all over the floor."

"Water evaporates," Miles said and gestured another crystal flake into existence. Every last one was as beautiful as the first one that Phoenix had seen back in von Karma's castle, and this time they stayed that way. "You're simply jealous that you can't do the same."

"With the right tools, my powers are far more flexible than yours," Mia said, arms folded below her breasts.

"Perhaps. You still can't do this," Miles said, and hung a snowflake below another bow.

As Mia walked away, shaking her head and wondering if the kingdom's stability was truly worth _him_, Phoenix pulled Miles close and smiled at him. It was entirely inappropriate for a consort to do with the king, in front of servants and with his marriage not yet settled. Neither cared. "You look happy." That happiness had been an uncertain thing; the marriage hadn't taken place, but the coronation had. It was a ceremony that could only take place with the death of the old king and that had reminded Miles of all of that pain anew. This would be not only the first state dinner for Phoenix, but also the first for the kingdom without Gregory at its head.

"I am," Miles said after a short beat. "I... I am."

"Good." Phoenix studied him, knowing that his expression was embarrassingly love-struck, and felt his smile broaden further when he saw how much Miles meant it.

"And you?" Miles asked, coughing and pulling back a step when an elderly servant woman smiled knowingly at them and walked on with her table linens.

"I'm perfect," Phoenix said and pulled him close again. Although the beauty beyond the windows was bitterly cold, he could feel the heat of Miles' body through their jackets. He kissed him, again not caring who watched. "I love winter."


End file.
